Come for the Activism;Stay for the Art

Steve McQueen. Not the bad-boy race car driver from The Great Escape, idolized by all guys over sixty for nabbing Ali MacGraw. The other Steve McQueen (officially Sir Steven Rodney McQueen CBE). The twenty-first century British filmmaker of Grenadian and Trinidadian descent who’s the polar opposite of last millennium Steve. Where American Steve McQueen is all frenzied pursuit, British Steve McQueen delivers deep stillness. His camera sits patient, documenting a passive black face so long, the inner rage rises through the skin and pierces our soul.

It was a no-brainer for me to hit ‘Play’ on Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s quintet of films about Caribbean immigrants in London during the 60’s and 70’s. The series got great reviews and aligns with my current anything-but-white-guy media jag. In the evening, my eyes are too tired for serious reading. I just want to watch.

Episode One, Mangrove, based on the real events of London police harassing a Trinidadian man uppity enough to open a restaurant in Notting Hill in the late 1960’s, is a full feature film. The riveting drama culminates in court room tension that feels both more genuine and more unsettling than Netflix’s recent The Trial of the Chicago 7. Devoid of Aaron Sorkin’s polished Hollywood, Mangrove is more authentic. Yet the scene that resonated in my head the following morning was a lingering image of restaurant debris, strewn across a floor beneath the soundtrack of a police raid. Mr. McQueen does not always show the violence. He makes us feel it.