Has British film got its mojo back?
New York Film Festival Lovers Rock Cert TBC, 68 min ★★★★★
Dir Steve Mcqueen
Starring Amarah-jae St Aubyn, Micheal Ward, Shaniqua Okwok, Francis Lovehall, Kedar Williamsstirling, Kadeem Ramsay, Ellis George, Alexander James-blake, Frankie Fox
Film, at its best, is a form of public transport – “a shuttle service between different places and times”, as John Berger once wrote. The new feature from Steve Mcqueen, the British director of Widows and 12 Years a Slave, is a Concorde-level case in point. Lovers Rock, which premiered last night at the New York Film Festival, is, on the face of things, a romantic chamber piece set at a house party thrown by some West Indian Londoners in 1980. Yet thanks to both its mesmerising cast and Mcqueen’s flawless command of atmosphere, it pulls off what I can only describe as a kind of cinematic ju-jitsu – heaving you back to that precise moment in history, then lifting your soul out of your skin in one seamless move.
Lovers Rock is one of five films in Mcqueen’s long-gestating Small Axe anthology, a series of dramas set in the capital’s West Indian community between the late Sixties and mideighties. The term “small axe” comes from a Caribbean proverb that suggests that the relationship between strength and numbers isn’t as linear as we might think – and while the film’s black partygoers are certainly a minority in their home town, their coming together conjures a community spirit that feels invincible, and borders on magic.
Mcqueen and his co-writer Courttia Newland revel in the ceremonial preparations for the big night ahead: the wiring-up of the sound system; the carrying-out of the sofa, still in its protective plastic covers; the preparation of curried goat.
Soon after that, the revellers arrive – and among them is Martha (Amarahjae St Aubyn), who comes with her friend Patty (Shaniqua Okwok) but soon catches the eye of the flirtatious Franklyn (Blue Story’s Micheal Ward).
Martha and Franklyn are effectively the romantic leads, and both Ward and St Aubyn, a newcomer, hold the screen like seasoned stars. Yet, while Mcqueen and Newland take care to set this night in its proper and sometimes uncomfortable historical context, the plot is minimal, its dialogue (halfenglish, half-patois) often incidental, and its action driven almost entirely by movement and music.
This might just be seven months of lockdown talking, but is British film on the brink of rediscovering its libido? Even the dancing itself has been choreographed and shot with such intoxicating poise, it feels like it’s breaking new ground. In a truly scalp-prickling sequence, the partygoers sing along to Janet Kay’s Silly Games – and as the record ends, their voices keep it going and going. Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner’s camera pans over the crowd, then finds a single bead of condensation trickling down the Anaglypta. It’s as if the room itself has started to sweat, and you can hardly blame it.
Screening on BBC One later this year as part of Small Axe, a collection of five original films created by Steve Mcqueen