Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, Clarke Peters, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Omar J. Dorsey, Henry Hunter Hall, Tim Guinee, Nick Basta, Joseph Lee Anderson, Antonio J Bell, CJ McBath, Alexis Louder, Ana Brooks, Janelle Monae, Zackary Momoh, Frank Riley III, Daphne Reed, Jenna Marie Hess, Kathryn Tkel, Vondie Curtos-Hall, Jennifer Nettles, Deborah Ayorinde, Mike Marunde, Kamillah Matthews, Rakeem Lewis, Tory Kittles, Tia L. Davis, Mitchell Hoog, William L. Thomas.
We are either sceptical of the truth, blind to it, ignorant of the facts, or ultimately a denier, a person to whom the events that surround a certain struggle or fight in history comes with absolute certainty that the world and its people is being led by the nose to an untruth, a lie, a mark of punishment that all should feel even if they believe they personally had no part to play, no gain to be made. The denier of injustice is to be seen as more than ignorant, it could be argued that they are a collaborator, an aide to the pain inflicted, even several hundred years after the fact.
We only have to understand that outside of the United States of America the populace of the world is still to yet understand the full effects of slavery visited upon those with African blood in their veins, and that inside that country, they call of the land of the free, there are those with hate in the minds to whom would secretly, or not as some cases would be open to interpret, happily, economically, bring back the ability to own a person as property and treat them as if they were nothing more than chattels.
The more films that are released that explore the fear caused by slavery, the more books that are written with detailed timelines and accounts of bravery and notices of barbaric, intolerable behaviour, the more a certain mind set seems to take hold in some people’s souls. It is up to the majority to keep the fight in the open, and if ever there was one woman who typified that determination, the absolute steel and grace in that struggle, that the subject of the epic film Harriet, former slave, turned abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman, is arguably one to whom the story is deeply fascinating, at times brutal, but one filled with a quality denied the collaborator, courage.
Written by Kasi Lemons and Gregory Allen, and directed with unnerving consciousness by Ms. Lemons, Harriet is not just another film that seeks to inflict rightful blame of the plight of the African American who was born into slavery, it is a cinematic moment that requires careful attention, of asking to whom you place your trust in pronouncing history correctly. As with the seminal act of deliverance caught for eternity by television as the great Martin Luther King delivered his majestic speech on the steps of The Lincoln Memorial, so too will history continue to honour the name of Harriet Tubman who led from the front to free people from the tyranny and abhorrence of slavery in the lead up to the American Civil War.
In the hands of Cynthia Erivo as the eponymous Harriet, and with superb support and performances by actors such as Henry Hunter Hall, Tim Guinee and Vanessa Bell Calloway, Harriet is not just a film to sit through and believe you learned all you need to know about the issue, or indeed the person to whom is the subject, but the moment of clarity required which furthers change, of opinion, of mindset, of belief; a film that urges the watcher to learn more in the hope that the deniers and collaborators of any atrocity against their fellow human beings will soon be numbered at zero.
Ian D. Hall