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Review // The Birth of a Nation

[projekktor id=’25640′]
Nate Parker’s slave rebellion drama The Birth of a Nation has been through the ringer since its premiere at Sundance. First earning standing ovations, Oscar rumours and a record-setting $17.5 million deal from Fox Searchlight Pictures in Park City, before running into a wall of controversy when Parker and co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin’s 1999 rape charges were brought back into the light in August. Those charges (for which Parker was acquitted) cast a gloom around the film during what should have been its triumphant premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. Now, as it gets its premiere in Canadian theatres this weekend, the film is enshrouded in the age old question “can an artist’s work be evaluated separately from the artist themselves?” It’s a tough one, especially since Parker – on top of co-writing and directing – casts himself in the lead role as the slave rebellion leader Nat Turner.
We meet Nat at a fireside ceremony in the dark Virginian forest, where the young boy is told by a group of elders that he is marked to be a great leader. At the Turner plantation where he is enslaved, Nat is favoured by the family, and is taken in by the matriarch Elizabeth (Penelope Ann Miller) to be given a proper, biblical education. Deep in the heart of the American south, the Turner plantation is a refuge of compassion for the slaves on its lands, compared to the plantations around it. In an early scene Nat’s father is forced to flee after stealing food, and snarling slave catcher Raymond Cobb (Jackie Earle Haley) nearly beats the family into submission before being stopped by Mr. Turner. However by the time Nat has grown, and the plantation passed on to the younger Turner Samuel (Armie Hammer), it has fallen into disrepair. Dealing with the effects of a drought (and, ironically, a drinking problem) Samuel decides to make some money carting Nat around the countryside to preach to the slaves of neighbouring plantations.
The words of the bible are a central theme in the film. This is the American south, in which the grand contradiction of Christian sanctimony and the brutal dehumanization of an entire race of people exist side by side, and that contradiction is mirrored in Nat. His early sermons preach piety and submission, but they slowly transition to righteous anger as he is exposed to the barbaric treatment of his brothers-in-chains. Though the film’s dialogue is perfectly adequate, its most powerful moments come from Nat simply quoting scripture. In a pivotal scene, he fires biblical quotes back and forth with the slovenly Reverend Zalthall (Mark Boone Jr.), answering every call for submission with a cry for liberation. By the time Nat and his rag tag group of followers make up their mind to rebel, Nat has transformed the word of God from a tool of bondage to a weapon of vengeance.
This transition is less convincingly portrayed in the film’s visuals. Though punctuated with startling moments of extreme violence, the film as a whole is a bit of a lacklustre viewing experience. The expansive shots of vast cotton fields and crumbling gothic estates give the film a wonderful sense of place, yet less of this power is carried over in its more intimate moments, which often feel a little formulaic. Nat’s wooing of his wife Cherry (Aja Naomi King) begins with a powerful scene at a slave auction, but quickly falls into Nicholas Sparks-esque cliches for much of the courtship. This is made worse by the fact that Cherry, and Nat’s mother Nancy (Aunjanue Ellis), are basically reduced to either cheerleaders or punching bags, existing only to motivate him in one way or another. When Parker does veer into bold or experimental imagery it’s often to portray Nat as Christlike, which is not out of line in a film so steeped in religious themes, but feels uncomfortably self-aggrandizing for the director/star.
Nevertheless Parker has brought to the screen a fascinating and important moment of American history, one that feels especially prescient in the light of the racially charged police violence happening across the United States today. Though it may not reach the soaring cinematic beauty of a film like 12 Years a Slave, The Birth of a Nation provides a unique glimpse into the American south, and an enlightening look at the power of language to control and corrupt.