Director Spotlight: AMMA ASSANTE

Had already seen: A United Kingdom (2016)
Watched for this: Belle (2013), A Way of Life (2004), Nokia "No Time To Die" commercial
Have not seen: Where Hands Touch (2018), two episodes each of The Handmaid's Tale and Mrs. America

I could probably have managed to watch Where Hands Touch, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to. More on that tomorrow.

Amma Assante is a bit different from the other directors is that she is British, born in London. I am sure that affects her outlook on a variety of topics, including class. I included her because my sisters and I had really enjoyed A United Kingdom and I had heard good things about Belle, so wanted to watch it anyway.

It is notable how different the three films watched are in their settings and characters. A United Kingdom spans mid-20th century England and Botswana, with characters from the working class dealing with royalty and government functionaries, as well as the colonizers abroad. Belle is set in 19th century England, and strictly upper-class, but facing issues of race and illegitimacy. Then A Way of Life is early 21st century, set squalidly among the urban poor in Cardiff, Wales.

A United Kingdom remains my favorite, but it also the one where the director needed to slice a little. The lead-in to the conflict - where Seretse and Ruth fall in love - feels overly long and drawn out. I understand why it feels important to show that start, but the interactions between David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike show so much tenderness and devotion via both the acting and the script that the movie would have been better for simply trusting them. Belle is much more even, perhaps simply for trying to tell a simpler story.

But where I really want to focus is on A Way of Life. I need to rant a bit, though not at Assante.

When I refer to the squalor, it's not so much a matter of cleanliness or the lack of opulence; there are things that look dingy and sad but that's not the real problem.

Instead it is the pervasive nastiness of the young, poor, criminal Welsh. I did feel for them, especially seeing one applying for a job, and the impossibility of any good experiences being open to him. There is a lot of real pain, but they all did so much to make it worse, and so much of that was rooted in racism.

I am grateful that I saw Blinded By the Light previously. That meant that when I heard the word "Paki" being hurled at people with darker skin, I was kind of prepared for it, though you would like to hope there has been some improvement between the 1980s and now. Based on UKIP, probably not. I was surprised to see it being used on people from Turkey, though I am not sure whether that means that racial epithets are not specific or that people don't pay attention to country of origin. There isn't really a better option there.

Spoilers follow:

LeighAnne is a 17 year old girl with a six-month old baby. Her mother is dead, the baby's father is in jail, and she does not get along with her father and stepmother. She is closest to her brother and his friends, who squat and steal to get by, though she is not above hurting them either. They are cruelly loyal to each other. LeighAnne sometimes interacts with her child's grandmother, though that relationship is acrimonious as well. 

She also really hates the Turkish man across the street. For all of her many faults, LeighAnne loves her daughter, and is afraid of being found unfit to care for her. This fear leads to bad decisions, like delaying medical care when Rebecca burns her hand. It leads to always being suspicious of everything her neighbor does, especially when she sees him talking to a social worker.

I am sure there is some jealousy too. Hassan has a loving relationship with his daughter, and his own business that can at least give him some hope for future improvement. It is true he sometimes looks at LeighAnne with cold eyes, but having never seen a friendly look from her, that's understandable. 

LeighAnne becomes convinced that Hassan has reported her to the social worker, and stalking and an accusation turns into LeighAnne, her brother, and his friends stomping Hassan to death in a horrifying scene. You actually see part of it in the beginning, and you see the ball roll off to the side, so you know it is not the ball that they are kicking, but that doesn't make any of it less shocking. 

Later, the social worker reveals to LeighAnne - who is going to jail and so is absolutely losing Rebecca - that Hassan was speaking to her because he was worried about his own daughter, who you find out is pregnant, by LeighAnne's brother. (That does not all come from the social worker, which would be a breach of privacy, of course. Everything is spiraling in that last segment.) As LeighAnne realizes that what they did was stupid and pointless (I assume she already knew it was vicious but did not care about that part) and that her anger at potential separation from her daughter is now leading to actual separation from her daughter, the social worker asks her "What did you think would happen?"

What makes you think there was thought? 

In all of the undermining and pettiness and defensiveness and spite and harassment, where were there any signs of thought?

I sympathized with the misery, but I hated how they turned that against others, and people who had done them no harm. In fact, one of the friends was half-Indian (again, they are not specific in their racism). LeighAnne's brother was certainly capable of being attracted to a girl who was at least half Turkish, but that was not a reason to not stomp her father to death, while she is crying and screaming for help. Her child will come into the world missing a grandparent, with a father in jail, and little hope that the cycle won't repeat.

The film was well-done, but it was so frustrating in its hopeless poverty and racism, which was the point. 

Truly a film for this 21st century.