Mark Reviews Movies: EMANCIPATION

Emancipation, Apple Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 8, 2022

At the start, the world of Emancipation is nearly in black-and-white. Some shots of the swamps of Louisiana might possess the faintest tinge of green, but otherwise, the water, the trees, and the birds flying through the sky are on a monochromatic spectrum of gray. The first real sign of any color beyond that arrives in close-ups of Peter (Will Smith), an enslaved man whose face stands out against the dimness of the cabin surrounding him and the drabness of his clothes. It's a subtle stylistic touch in a movie that quickly abandons subtlety or any kind of consistency in its style.

It's difficult to get past the main aesthetic choice made by director Antoine Fuqua and cinematographer Robert Richardson. They drain their movie of color, occasionally make certain people and objects pop on the frame by re-introducing hue, and gradually give us more and more tints and tones as Peter's perilous journey bring him closer and closer to the promise of freedom (before removing most of the color yet again, just to make the whole purpose of the gimmick seem more confused than it needs to be).

At times, it's visually striking, to be sure, such as when the orange glow of flames and splatters of red blood highlight the chaotic violence of this mid-Civil War drama or, on the other end of things, when the green of those bayou trees offers a pause of calm between the story's assorted storms. The decision is also an inherent distraction, seemingly forced upon material that requires at least some deflection from its lack of depth, insight, or, as soon as the repetitive nature of Bill Collage's screenplay becomes apparent, excitement.

The story here is based on a true one (although the subject of a famous photograph who inspires this tale isn't revealed until the third act). In it, Peter is separated from his wife Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa) and children on a cotton plantation. He's brought to a Confederate camp, currently constructing railway lines for the transportation of large cannons, and there, he and countless, nameless, and mostly faceless enslaved men are subjected to hard labor, repeated beatings, and the constant threat of being shot or hanged.

The cruelty depicted during this sequence is essentially non-stop, with images of heads on pikes on the road to the camp, multiple moments of men being struck and whipped, a man being shot and killed at random in the backdrop, and the branding of the face of John (Michael Luwoye), a fellow enslaved man who is at odds with Peter's faith in a higher power. There's little denying how shocking the onslaught of dehumanizing words, actions, and violence is, but its sole effect is to shock. In transforming all of this into what's basically a horror show, the movie itself removes any sense of the humanity of these victims.

Unfortunately, that more or less continues with Peter's character, too. The plot has him and other unjust prisoners escaping from the camp, parting ways to find safe passage to a Baton Rouge under Union Army control, and being pursued by the cold, calculating man-hunter Jim Fassel (Ben Foster). His character, by the way, receives a chilling and unprompted monologue about how and why his racist attitudes came to be (There's a disturbing mirror of that story when a little girl spots Peter and jumps to action).

Meanwhile, Peter is mostly relegated to running, hiding, trying to hold back panicked breathing, and shedding a perfectly framed tear or two at the thought of his still-enslaved family. Smith's performance is commanding in the actor's portrayal of physical, mental, and emotional resilience, but as a character, Peter exists primarily to act and be acted upon over the course of his arduous trek.

Most of the story, save for the third-act revelation and an extended battle scene (that oddly returns to black-and-white, save for the bright, tri-color emblem of Old Glory), recounts or imagines Peter's adventures (Despite how trivializing that term might seem in this context, that is the general feeling of the plot). He evades Jim and his men (including a Black man, played by Aaron Moten, whose story could be intriguing but who is simply here as a symbol of villainous betrayal), encounters assorted obstacles, and deals with natural forces—such as a snake and during an underwater wrestling match with an alligator—as deadly as the men pursuing him.

Generally, Fuqua stages each of these scenes with tension, thanks to Smith's work and the way the camera focuses on or never loses track of Peter. As the challenges and complications mount and repeat themselves, though, the general process of the storytelling becomes increasingly redundant.

Smith may communicate dread and some undying hope that his journey will arrive at freedom for Peter and his family, but it's simply not enough of a connection to some deeper sense of humanity to make this character come across as more than a pawn in a twisted game of survival against the odds. The subject matter of Emancipation, as well as the true story of its protagonist, deserves more than such a fundamentally shallow piece of storytelling.

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