4th of July Weekend Double Feature: ‘Queen & Slim’ and ‘Lingua Franca’
Let’s go with an understatement: America was not worth celebrating this past weekend. Instead of getting blackout drunk, I found myself back in the cinema, the way it should be: alone, with no more than 10 other people in the room. I didn’t do it on purpose, but my self-fashioned double feature celebrated another America, the one built by Black Americans and immigrants, while critiquing the perpetual violence that both groups face in the Land of the Not-So-Free.
Universal Pictures
On Saturday, I saw Queen & Slim, a rainbow explosion of a film, directed by Melina Matsoukas of “Formation” fame, and co-written by Lena Waithe of Master of None fame. The neat soundbite “the Black Bonnie and Clyde” is annoyingly descriptive, but doesn’t do full justice to what is a heart-pumping, graceful, furious revolution. “Queen” (Jodie Turner-Smith) and “Slim” (Daniel Kaluuya) — some interesting background on the choice and meaning of their names here — go on a Tinder date, only to get apprehended by a (white) policeman as he drives her home. As soon as you hear the siren on screen, you’re thinking “fuck” right with the characters. This won’t end well. And it doesn’t, of course; the situation escalates fast, the policeman shoots Queen in the leg, and Slim shoots the cop dead before he can realise what he’s doing. Ensues a wild chase à la Bonnie and Clyde across the country from Ohio to Louisiana to Florida. But what their white counterparts had in fun, in choice of the runaway life, Queen and Slim have in desperate racing for their survival, as the window of their chances for freedom closes in on them.
The message is clear: you are not free when you’re Black in America. You are guilty until proven innocent, and you will never be proven innocent, because you are Black. You are stripped of your humanity. Queen & Slim takes that stolen humanity back. It allows these two full human beings to be more than a hashtag for 2 hours and 12 minutes. It lends them a taste of freedom and grants them eternal life, and that’s without even touching on the soundtrack, which moves like waves through soul, country, indie, hip-hop, funk, jazz, R&B, disco, electronic. It’s without touching on the editing, which juxtaposes love and death, ugliness and beauty, kindness and cruelty, like the most natural thing in the world. It’s without touching on the performances. We all know Kaluuya can act, but here he lets himself be led by the heavyweight that is Turner-Smith. It’s her precise, deliberate manner that calls the shots, and will stick with you long after the credits roll.
On Sunday, I saw Lingua Franca, directed by and starring Isabel Sandoval. I don’t know how to say that this is a smaller and less ambitious film than Queen & Slim without it sounding like an insult. All I mean is that it’s narrower, quieter, simpler. It’s no less impactful. Olivia (portrayed by Sandoval) is an undocumented Filipino trans woman who works as a caregiver for an elderly Jewish Russian woman, Olga, in Brooklyn. Olivia is paying an American man to marry her for a Green Card when her life becomes entwined with that of Olga’s grandson, Alex (Eamon Farren). As they fall in love, Olivia slowly reveals the constant fear she lives in, of getting arrested and deported, as she turns a street corner, as she leaves Olga’s apartment, as she tries to build a decent life for herself. She has to withstand this threat alongside anti-trans rhetoric and the extra complication of her documentation not matching her gender identity.
JHR Films
Alex vows to protect Olivia, but she tells him that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He has problems of his own: his family, including his uncle and employer, don’t trust him because of his ongoing struggle with alcohol. Olivia loves Alex, but she doesn’t want him to save her. Only she can save herself. This is another reflection on who gets to be treated like a human being in the United States, and who has to watch their every step. Sandoval’s sensitive portrayal of undocumented life in America is also an exercise in reclaiming a stolen humanity, and it is stunning in its words and its imagery. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Both 10/10
If you’re able, please consider donating to UK Black Pride, Stonewall UK or Mermaids in the UK, and Black Lives Matter or the ACLU in the US.