Unfi nished Tales of Black Britain
Steve McQueen’s “Mangrove” fi rst in his “Small Axe” series
BY STEVE ERICKSON
It’s not quite news that the boundaries
between fi lm and TV are rapidly dissolving.
The freedom that directors who had
worked in TV found making movies now
tends to be reversed. But maintaining a barricade
between the media is an American refl ex,
to a large extent. In the 1970s, New German
Cinema was fi nanced by German state TV; in
the ‘90s, the French TV series “All the Boys
and Girls of Their Time” produced some of the
best fi lms of its time, especially Olivier Assayas’
“Cold Water.”
“Lovers Rock,” the best of the three episodes
of Steve McQueen’s limited series “Small Axe”
that I’ve been able to preview, feels very close
to “All the Boys and Girls of Their Time” in its
ecstatic treatment of music and dance. But
“Small Axe” also falls into the tradition of British
made-for-TV movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Unbeknownst
to Americans until much later, Alan
Clarke was then building a body of work that rivaled
Fassbinder’s or Godard’s. Mike Leigh and
Stephen Frears were preparing for larger budgets
DES WILLIE/ AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Shaun Parkes in Steve McQueen’s “Mangrove,” the fi rst episode of
“Small Axe.”
and audiences, and even fi lms like “Robin
Redbreast” and “Ghostwatch” showed how an
STREAMING CINEMA
ambitious director could put TV’s constraints
to work for them.
“Mangrove,” set in London’s Notting Hill
neighborhood and starting in 1968, is the
opening episode of “Small Axe.” (Each episode
will premiere on a Friday on Amazon Prime.)
Although West Indian-born Frank Crichlow
(Shaun Parkes), owner of the Mangrove restaurant,
is fairly apolitical at fi rst, he’s created a de
facto community hub. That makes it a target for
a police force so racist that they interrupt card
games to “nick a Black bastard” at random.
(“Mangrove” makes no attempt at reassuring
white audiences by introducing a sympathetic
white cop.) It becomes the gathering place for
members of the UK’s Black Panthers. When the
police raid it, Crichlow and eight activists go on
trial.
“Small Axe,” whose title comes from an African
proverb that inspired a Bob Marley song,
is set in Britain’s Afro-Caribbean community
from the late ‘60s to the early ‘80s. Each episode
tells a different story, with a new cast of
➤ MANGROVE, continued on p.31
Bill de Blasio
Mayor
Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc
Commissioner
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