Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Contrary to what Hollywood may have lead you to believe, royalty and white twenty-somethings falling in love are not the only people living in England. But despite England’s diverse population, particularly in the capital city of London, there are hardly any films about the Black British experience—and in particular, the Black British immigrant experience.
Steve McQueen is on a mission to correct that, and he’s made significant progress with Small Axe, a new anthology film series that premiered on Amazon Prime today. A total of five, standalone feature films directed by McQueen will be released weekly—starting today with Mangrove, starring Shaun Parkes and Letitia Wright—and all feature London’s West Indian immigrant community between the years 1960 and 1980. It’s the very era that McQueen himself was growing up in London, and the stories, he said in the press notes for the film, come from “my parents, my aunt, and by experiencing racial discrimination myself growing up in the 70s and 80s.”
Many of the films double as a history lesson. Mangrove recounts a highly publicized trial which found nine Black activists on trial for conspiracy to incite a riot, after they staged a peaceful protest against the raids of The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, London. Known as the “Mangrove Nine,” the activists included the leader of the British Black Panther Movement Altheia Jones-LeCointe (played by Wright in the film); the owner of the restaurant, Frank Crichlow (Parkes); and activist Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby).
Lovers Rock, coming to Prime on November 27, tells a history that has less to do with archiving names and dates, and more to do archiving a cultural tradition. Taking place over one dreamy night, McQueen captures the excitement, the drama, but most of all, the romance found in a fictional reggae house party in 1980—a real phenomenon born out of necessity, when Black youth in London were unwelcome at the white nightclubs. Red, White, and Blue, coming December 4, is a biopic of Leroy Logan (played by Stars Wars Jedi John Boyega), a highly respected superintendent in the Metropolitan police in the 80s and 90s. Alex Wheatle, coming December 11, tell the story of the award-winning Black novelist (played by Sheyi Cole) who was imprisoned during the Brixton Uprising of 1981. And Education, coming December 18, is a coming-of-age story about a boy who is dubbed “special needs” and sent down an inferior education track than his white peers.
Taken together, McQueen’s Small Axe film series is a heroic attempt to fill in the many gaps in British history on film. Though only the first three have been made available to the press, so far the series is a moving and gorgeous recreation of stories that are no doubt new to some, and deeply personal to others. Each is its own unique, immersive experience, transporting you to another time and place. Though just five films, Small Axe feels as though it will go a long way towards correcting the skewed version of England in the late 20th century that Hollywood has fed us for far too long.
