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Saturday, November 12th, 2022 03:02 am
Black Panther:Wakanda Forever
So went to see that today and just--did not expect it. The trailers really did not prepare me for it.
Short version: yes, go see it right now.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. Okay? Okay.
In general, portrays of grief in the media are by necessity and probably preference usually hit the pain part but treat it like breaking a leg when it's probably closer to having the flu that starts with a broken leg. Anger they hit perfectly and did not back the fuck down, thank you, Marvel. The movie hit those and did it well, but it also hit two much harder subjects to portray: the loss and the confusion that come with grief. And that loss isn't just the person who died, but the parts of you that go with them; how do you live with pieces of yourself gone, how do you put yourself back together?
You don't; you can't. You accept--at some point--that it isn't something you control, any more than you can make a wound heal. And then comes the much, much harder job: accepting actually, you'll be whole again despite what you lost. Time doesn't heal; time is how we mark the space between accepting we cannot get back what we lost and then accepting we're whole without it.
And all of it, every second, will be messy as fuck and that part's around to stay.
Queen Ramonda was at the relative end of that part (it really doesn't end until oh, death) but like I said, this bullshit is messy. She's still grieving and still pretty goddamn angry (with her there) but she's come to terms that no, you can't just lay down and die until it goes away, so living with it is pretty much the only option. She also has two things Shuri doesn't have; she's a mother and she's the Queen.
Nothing--I repeat nothing--works to make you actually want to live as much as having to pretend you do. Fake it until you make it; it works. Rule the country; keep out enemies; make sure your daughter doesn't drown in grief or explode in a very weird lab experiment gone wrong; to do those things, sleeping, eating, and being alive are kind of mandatory.
Shuri's grief is incredibly simple--it's obvious, she lost her brother--and complicated because grief is always complicated as fuck. She doesn't know how to even contextualize it; this wasn't battle or assassination but illness--illness, in Wakanda, to the Black Panther. It's like bleeding out from a paper cut; what the hell just happened?
This wasn't a supervillain, Thanos, wartime; T'Challah got sick. It wasn't something Shuri couldn't fight; she did fight. It was something she fought and she lost. Her brother died of a papercut and she couldn't stop the bleeding and that makes no sense at all.
Queen Ramonda's death--which fucking came out of nowhere, holy shit Marvel, you managed to really hit me thanks--was horrible, unexpected, but made sense; she was murdered, and that shit, Shuri understands. This, she has context for. So our Princess had two dead family members worth of rage and hell yes, she knows what to do with this.
So yeah, of course the first thing she does is get the heart-shaped herb back and no, it wasn't going to be that hard to pull off. She probably could have done it anytime in the last year; she didn't want to. Her brother was dead; that herb wasn't there to save him. Fuck the herb; it's useless.
Now though: she has a use for that herb and doesn't pretend it's not 'shedding fish man blood, lots of it'.
I really do want to talk about Namor, because he was a really really good character. It pulled some of thee same general elements as Killmonger's motivations; less immediate, but not necessarily less powerful. Killmonger experienced both life lived as a Black man in America as well as the effects of generational trauma; Namor is the product of it and the living memory of it. He was the first born to his people after they went into the water; he was born of it and actually literally saw it, a living, breathing memory of the Conquistadors destroying and enslaving the indigenous people he came from. Which is why I said 'less immediate' in the sense of time as a constant. As far as Namor's concerned, it's pretty fucking immediate as he literally remembers it.
And much like Killmonger...he's not actually wrong about the world in any way whatsoever.
But then he killed Queen Ramonda in front of God, Shuri, and the entire audience so fuck him, get some herb and kill the fucker, Shuri.
So it's no surprise that when Shuri took the herb, it was Killmonger who greeted her in the realm of the Ancestors. The only person who was surprised was Shuri.
"You called me." (Note: Michael Jordan continues to be unearthly gorgeous. Just wanted to reassure you: holy shit.)
Who do you call when you take the herb specifically to embark on some serious revenge with sooo much prejudice and fuck the consequences short- medium- and long-term? The guy who did it first (and almost pulled it off).
Shuri is a scientist: logical, rational, thoughtful. She wasn't groomed to rule--and while yes she obviously has all the skills, she also doesn't want to. She's had no interest in being a superhero; she's expanding the entire frontier of knowledge a few generations ahead of schedule and does (sometimes) need to sleep. Killmonger isn't the opposite of T'Challah; he's T'Challah through a very different mirror. But he is very much the opposite of Shuri.
And Shuri is now every thing she didn't want to be: her entire family is dead, (at least for now) she's Wakanda's de facto ruler, it's protector, a superhero, and someone seeking revenge to ease their own personal pain. Her world wasn't just destroyed; she was shoved into a brand new one--that is much, much worse--that literally makes no sense, and apparently, she's supposed to just deal.
And all this because of a fucking paper cut she couldn't fix.
I have skipped massive amounts of plot and when I buy the movie--and it better arrive on delivery day whenever that is--I'll appreciate that too, because it was actually really good and I really liked it--but this movie wasn't the classic hero's journey (though yeah, it definitely qualifies for that). It was the personal decision of moving past who you were and deciding who you are and who you want to be. The story almost demanded Namor die, like Killmonger did; the question was, does Shuri demand his death; is that who she will be? And you have until he stops breathing to figure it out: go.
Are you noble like your brother, or do you get shit done, like me?
Shuri is a princess, a scientist, and a genius; thanks, but no, she isn't like anyone else, ever. She may still be struggling with 'who she is' so she'll skip to 'who she isn't' and Namor, here's some water you fucker, and you better be grateful I switched existential questions there.
Did she makes the right decision? Yeah probably, but I want him so very dead.
Then there's the ending, which I am leaving off, because I'm like that.
*****
As expected, Forever Wakanda matches Black Panther as the most beautifully shot and beautifully framed Marvel movie; T'Challah's funeral was gorgeously done, the wide streets and masses of white clad bodies, the celebration of a life lived and its passing. The fact they spent time on showing the funeral itself--real time, not just a few flashes--makes the stakes so high and personal for the audience. Wakanda is grieving and so are we, both for the character we loved and the man who defined him for a generation.
Those gorgeous, wide, sweeping shots--even of streets filled with people--makes how often we are in beautifully shot beautifully framed, claustrophobia-inducing shots not an accident. The Wakandan throne room, M'Barra's throne room seemed huge and endless and then tiny, almost closet-sized (and also, in the former, flooded). The gorgeous undersea city, wide and open (granted, under water) and then the high ceiling caves that were quite spacious and felt like coffins. Outside in the brush sitting by the river at night where it felt like the darkness closing in: as someone claustrophobic, fuck yes I noticed and it was effective as hell. Grief is a prison and it is very small and you are very, very alone.
(And from a viewer perspective: please watch this movie and see how to do movies with dark scenes that the viewer can still see perfectly? Just a thought.)
*****
I feel like I am totally skimming over Riri Williams, another young genius who--here's a shocker--made a machine that the government secretly stole to find vibranium and did not see any of this bullshit coming, she just wanted an A, and Okoye, who I adore and was all over the place here and I still live in hope for Disney+ giving us an Okoye and the Dora Milaje [Doing Something I Honestly Don't Care What]. I will--I hope--come back to them, but this movie was intensely character-driven by Queen Ramonda and Shuri and it's still hard for me to think around them at all. It was a genuine surprise to get a movie--a Marvel movie, of all things--a.) center the characters in the narrative, not the plot, and b.) be this fucking character-driven. There was no feeling of 'plot happens, therefore characters must do something because that's what happens in a story'; I would say the plot was less 'driven' than being forcibly grabbed by the characters and dragged to wherever they felt like it should go, which really works for me.
I cried four (4) times, which is an accomplishment by the way, and walked out feeling dazed and better than I have in a while. So there you go.
Yes, go see it now.
Short version: yes, go see it right now.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. Okay? Okay.
In general, portrays of grief in the media are by necessity and probably preference usually hit the pain part but treat it like breaking a leg when it's probably closer to having the flu that starts with a broken leg. Anger they hit perfectly and did not back the fuck down, thank you, Marvel. The movie hit those and did it well, but it also hit two much harder subjects to portray: the loss and the confusion that come with grief. And that loss isn't just the person who died, but the parts of you that go with them; how do you live with pieces of yourself gone, how do you put yourself back together?
You don't; you can't. You accept--at some point--that it isn't something you control, any more than you can make a wound heal. And then comes the much, much harder job: accepting actually, you'll be whole again despite what you lost. Time doesn't heal; time is how we mark the space between accepting we cannot get back what we lost and then accepting we're whole without it.
And all of it, every second, will be messy as fuck and that part's around to stay.
Queen Ramonda was at the relative end of that part (it really doesn't end until oh, death) but like I said, this bullshit is messy. She's still grieving and still pretty goddamn angry (with her there) but she's come to terms that no, you can't just lay down and die until it goes away, so living with it is pretty much the only option. She also has two things Shuri doesn't have; she's a mother and she's the Queen.
Nothing--I repeat nothing--works to make you actually want to live as much as having to pretend you do. Fake it until you make it; it works. Rule the country; keep out enemies; make sure your daughter doesn't drown in grief or explode in a very weird lab experiment gone wrong; to do those things, sleeping, eating, and being alive are kind of mandatory.
Shuri's grief is incredibly simple--it's obvious, she lost her brother--and complicated because grief is always complicated as fuck. She doesn't know how to even contextualize it; this wasn't battle or assassination but illness--illness, in Wakanda, to the Black Panther. It's like bleeding out from a paper cut; what the hell just happened?
This wasn't a supervillain, Thanos, wartime; T'Challah got sick. It wasn't something Shuri couldn't fight; she did fight. It was something she fought and she lost. Her brother died of a papercut and she couldn't stop the bleeding and that makes no sense at all.
Queen Ramonda's death--which fucking came out of nowhere, holy shit Marvel, you managed to really hit me thanks--was horrible, unexpected, but made sense; she was murdered, and that shit, Shuri understands. This, she has context for. So our Princess had two dead family members worth of rage and hell yes, she knows what to do with this.
So yeah, of course the first thing she does is get the heart-shaped herb back and no, it wasn't going to be that hard to pull off. She probably could have done it anytime in the last year; she didn't want to. Her brother was dead; that herb wasn't there to save him. Fuck the herb; it's useless.
Now though: she has a use for that herb and doesn't pretend it's not 'shedding fish man blood, lots of it'.
I really do want to talk about Namor, because he was a really really good character. It pulled some of thee same general elements as Killmonger's motivations; less immediate, but not necessarily less powerful. Killmonger experienced both life lived as a Black man in America as well as the effects of generational trauma; Namor is the product of it and the living memory of it. He was the first born to his people after they went into the water; he was born of it and actually literally saw it, a living, breathing memory of the Conquistadors destroying and enslaving the indigenous people he came from. Which is why I said 'less immediate' in the sense of time as a constant. As far as Namor's concerned, it's pretty fucking immediate as he literally remembers it.
And much like Killmonger...he's not actually wrong about the world in any way whatsoever.
But then he killed Queen Ramonda in front of God, Shuri, and the entire audience so fuck him, get some herb and kill the fucker, Shuri.
So it's no surprise that when Shuri took the herb, it was Killmonger who greeted her in the realm of the Ancestors. The only person who was surprised was Shuri.
"You called me." (Note: Michael Jordan continues to be unearthly gorgeous. Just wanted to reassure you: holy shit.)
Who do you call when you take the herb specifically to embark on some serious revenge with sooo much prejudice and fuck the consequences short- medium- and long-term? The guy who did it first (and almost pulled it off).
Shuri is a scientist: logical, rational, thoughtful. She wasn't groomed to rule--and while yes she obviously has all the skills, she also doesn't want to. She's had no interest in being a superhero; she's expanding the entire frontier of knowledge a few generations ahead of schedule and does (sometimes) need to sleep. Killmonger isn't the opposite of T'Challah; he's T'Challah through a very different mirror. But he is very much the opposite of Shuri.
And Shuri is now every thing she didn't want to be: her entire family is dead, (at least for now) she's Wakanda's de facto ruler, it's protector, a superhero, and someone seeking revenge to ease their own personal pain. Her world wasn't just destroyed; she was shoved into a brand new one--that is much, much worse--that literally makes no sense, and apparently, she's supposed to just deal.
And all this because of a fucking paper cut she couldn't fix.
I have skipped massive amounts of plot and when I buy the movie--and it better arrive on delivery day whenever that is--I'll appreciate that too, because it was actually really good and I really liked it--but this movie wasn't the classic hero's journey (though yeah, it definitely qualifies for that). It was the personal decision of moving past who you were and deciding who you are and who you want to be. The story almost demanded Namor die, like Killmonger did; the question was, does Shuri demand his death; is that who she will be? And you have until he stops breathing to figure it out: go.
Are you noble like your brother, or do you get shit done, like me?
Shuri is a princess, a scientist, and a genius; thanks, but no, she isn't like anyone else, ever. She may still be struggling with 'who she is' so she'll skip to 'who she isn't' and Namor, here's some water you fucker, and you better be grateful I switched existential questions there.
Did she makes the right decision? Yeah probably, but I want him so very dead.
Then there's the ending, which I am leaving off, because I'm like that.
*****
As expected, Forever Wakanda matches Black Panther as the most beautifully shot and beautifully framed Marvel movie; T'Challah's funeral was gorgeously done, the wide streets and masses of white clad bodies, the celebration of a life lived and its passing. The fact they spent time on showing the funeral itself--real time, not just a few flashes--makes the stakes so high and personal for the audience. Wakanda is grieving and so are we, both for the character we loved and the man who defined him for a generation.
Those gorgeous, wide, sweeping shots--even of streets filled with people--makes how often we are in beautifully shot beautifully framed, claustrophobia-inducing shots not an accident. The Wakandan throne room, M'Barra's throne room seemed huge and endless and then tiny, almost closet-sized (and also, in the former, flooded). The gorgeous undersea city, wide and open (granted, under water) and then the high ceiling caves that were quite spacious and felt like coffins. Outside in the brush sitting by the river at night where it felt like the darkness closing in: as someone claustrophobic, fuck yes I noticed and it was effective as hell. Grief is a prison and it is very small and you are very, very alone.
(And from a viewer perspective: please watch this movie and see how to do movies with dark scenes that the viewer can still see perfectly? Just a thought.)
*****
I feel like I am totally skimming over Riri Williams, another young genius who--here's a shocker--made a machine that the government secretly stole to find vibranium and did not see any of this bullshit coming, she just wanted an A, and Okoye, who I adore and was all over the place here and I still live in hope for Disney+ giving us an Okoye and the Dora Milaje [Doing Something I Honestly Don't Care What]. I will--I hope--come back to them, but this movie was intensely character-driven by Queen Ramonda and Shuri and it's still hard for me to think around them at all. It was a genuine surprise to get a movie--a Marvel movie, of all things--a.) center the characters in the narrative, not the plot, and b.) be this fucking character-driven. There was no feeling of 'plot happens, therefore characters must do something because that's what happens in a story'; I would say the plot was less 'driven' than being forcibly grabbed by the characters and dragged to wherever they felt like it should go, which really works for me.
I cried four (4) times, which is an accomplishment by the way, and walked out feeling dazed and better than I have in a while. So there you go.
Yes, go see it now.
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