Liam_Trump

Steve McQueen's new anthology series, Small Axe starts off strong with the first entry, Mangrove. In the first half of Mangrove, the story focuses mainly on Frank as his restaurant, The Mangrove is bombarded with unprovoked police attacks. This all culminates into a march where several of the activists are brought to appeal their cases in court, where the later half of the film takes place.

Throughout the film, McQueen implemented some great music choices, elevating whatever tone he was trying to achieve. He used this to great effect, scenes turning on a dime; going from fun and free flowing to dark and chaotic all through the use, or lack thereof, of music alongside with the expert staging that many scenes had. Shabier Kirchner's cinematography worked very well in conjunction with the staging, creating a naturalistic feel for the majority of the film as many scenes were done in one take. The performances in Mangrove complemented these one take scenes with Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes, and Jodhi May all showing a very wide range of emotions.

Still though, this isn't a perfect film. The second half, which focuses mainly on a trial, felt slightly unoriginal just because this sequence of events has been done in countless films. The transitions from scene to scene were also very repetitive, most transitions being a hard cut to the next shot. At times this did work, but for the times that it didn't the film felt jarring at these moments.

All in all, though, Steve McQueen's Mangrove is a very well made look into the climate of 1970's England and the racism that many black people faced. This is one of the most important films of the year so, when it gets a wide release, I hope many people go and see it.

8/10