Nickel Boys
Some films are certainly much more exquisite than others. One such film is RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys”, which is a film adaptation fit for the Colson Whitehead Masterpiece. It has a touch of hard headedness that cuts through the entire story like strong cold winds on a hot sticky summer day. Set in Florida, it is a well conceived, bold story of two Black children who are Elwood and Turner and are living in the time of severe segregation. Nickel Academy is where Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a bright and hopeful boy, is sent to after being wrongly accused and sent to the horrendous reformative facility. Turner (Brandon Wilson) is however the brighter friend whom he does meet in the dark tunnels of those years. Such is the perspective that the teenagers in Nickel Boys the title of the motion picture take that it pulls the onlookers to recommend them even after so many years ago.
Do you wish to have your hands held before facing a challenge? If so then this isn’t for you. Shot primarily by flipping between Turner’s and Elwood’s perspectives, Ross and his brilliant DP Jomo Fray tell the audience when and why to look at things in a particular way and feel the things moreover how they are supposed to be felt. And if that doesn’t succeed, certainly the blame hasn’t changed from the style of the film.
It is a moment of great boldness for Ross, who made it clear in his documentary feature ‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’ that viewing the Southern Black town mandated a certain connection with the audience, to present its motions. Here, on the other hand, in a fictional context no less, had to reshape that yearning his debut in this format of storytelling, which is unchartered territory for him, and as such is full of risks and pitfalls. I mean, with “Nickel Boys,” one of the visually exquisite films seamlessly stitched with a quirky narrative and outstanding performances, the objective is definitely gratifying.
Our entry into the confining world of the film begins rather abruptly at the very onset in fact with the cutesy shimmer of the Christmas tree and images of kids on the monkey bars all together with the sad eyes of Elwood Curtis who is destined to be left alone and disappointed in his future (played earlier as a child by Ethan Cole Sharp). Elwood’s grandmother, Hattie, a hotel maid in Tallahassee, Florida and a heartwarming Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, is doting. He knows there is danger but it is nothing compared to the burning ambition embodied in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, during the Civil Rights movement, which tells him that the worst is in the past.
That is a thought that neither his grandmother nor Mr. Hill (Jimmy fails), who was a Freedom Rider, tries to correct. It is the latter who is impressed by Elwood’s urge to take part in the movement, in the form of providing funds as well as protests, that informs him of a local college which allows High schoolers to enroll. One of the days while travelling to that college, Elwood receives a ride from a stranger who had stolen a car, though Elwood has no idea. When the police apprehend the two after finding them together, they look at Elwood as an accomplice and take him to Nickel.
The passionate faith instilled in Elwood by his grandmother plays no useful role at Nickel where he finds a peaceful setting with strong buildings hiding the real danger. There is a sense that if not for the arrival of Turner, Elwood would have very soon succumbed to such harsh surroundings. It is through Elwood’s inviting gaze that one gets a picture of Elwood. Cameras dart across the twins at times, in some instances, the camera zooms out from capturing the twins’ image and closes in only a few instances. The emotional texture of the film is handled by two young actors, Herisse and Wilson, who seem to be poles apart in the film though will literally share no screen space.
A film that makes no effort in trying to help the viewers sympathize with Elwood and the rest of the characters from the get go but rather depends on people’s humanity, these actors bring the audience in.
In the same way, the flash forward structure which takes the film into the future with an aged Elwood, viewed from behind, disturbs us from the horrible racism which has in fact only changed slightly to this day. Also, the black and white photographs of incarcerated Black kids, images of Black children during Christmas or shots of Apollo 8 are archival films that change the way we engage with the white’s version of history which the film struggles against.
The artistic work by Ross and scriptwriter Joslyn Barnes along with Fray, is unbelievable. They take what appears to be an almost un adaptable into film book and transform the relaxed poeticism of Whitehead into promt a movie that is cinematographically advanced beyond the stunning visuals so that the imagery is more than just beautiful but rather, eerie. Some scenes are able to combine beauty and sorrow with a meeting of an elder Elwood and a grown up ex convict from nickel at a saloon, Hattie’s comforting arms and even the plenty of orange plants with small Black kids working there. Every moment in some episode of the “Nickel Boys” then is not merely the reconstruction of the moment in time this space seemingly tactile, bound and alien but where the wiped out textures of the memories do exist. That infiltration of the violent reality in the rationale of the internal vision is what brings the central figure’s perspective to life, more than just a hollow style, but rather an entire experience that interconnects and disrupts nearly a century of conventions in film language.
The politics of the film undergo a similar evolution. Elwood thinks that any challenge can be solved with strong determination, the kind of force that does not require violence. Turner on the other hand has a different perspective. He is a pragmatist.
He is confident that it is best to go back to the basic, basic ways of surviving. Their relationship resembles that of Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in the film, “The Defiant Ones,” which is one of the several films referred to in “Nickel Boys.” Of course, “The Defiant Ones,” is purely a product of white American capitalist values. Respect for the black man as an equal will settle racism if he is willing to give up something, they said. “Nickel Boys,” however, are not so naïve. There is a long struggle ahead. And “Nickel Boys” understands that struggle well, and any notion of freedom entails a cost.
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