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Super Freak
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2018
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Copy/paste from my entry for this movie from “Rate the Last Film You Watched” since this should have its own thread:
The Woman King… this is an incredibly good movie. It takes some major liberties with the real world history of the Dahomey Kingdom (at least per Wikipedia). In my own head canon I like to imagine that the character Nanisca, the Woman King, and the character Nawi went on to become a prominent citizens of Abeokuta, a city in Africa that actively fought to end the slave trade and twice went to war with Dahomey to bring that about finally, along with a British naval blockade three decades later. But if nothing else, the movie beckons the viewer to learn more about the history of the slave trade—and that is a valuable thing.
In any event, this movie is to me something like Dances With Wolves or Doctor Zhivago by basically telling a mythic tale by using the backdrop of a sweeping historical event. Best I can tell, the movie’s story is a metaphor about the emotional pain of dealing with the African slave trade aspect of black history, wherein white slavers exploited the warfare between African tribes by offering money for captives taken from those constant battles between tribes. And of processing it and working it through, etc.
I cared tremendously about the characters and the story itself. It is very powerful emotionally and I was moved to tears several times by it. Great performances by virtually everyone in the film.
Viola Davis created a production company, JuVee, to create more prestige roles for black actors and through that she developed and pitched this to TriStar, a division of Sony. It’s absolutely going to be nominated—and deservedly so—for multiple Oscar categories. I think it will probably win best picture. It’s that good.
Go see it!
The Woman King… this is an incredibly good movie. It takes some major liberties with the real world history of the Dahomey Kingdom (at least per Wikipedia). In my own head canon I like to imagine that the character Nanisca, the Woman King, and the character Nawi went on to become a prominent citizens of Abeokuta, a city in Africa that actively fought to end the slave trade and twice went to war with Dahomey to bring that about finally, along with a British naval blockade three decades later. But if nothing else, the movie beckons the viewer to learn more about the history of the slave trade—and that is a valuable thing.
In any event, this movie is to me something like Dances With Wolves or Doctor Zhivago by basically telling a mythic tale by using the backdrop of a sweeping historical event. Best I can tell, the movie’s story is a metaphor about the emotional pain of dealing with the African slave trade aspect of black history, wherein white slavers exploited the warfare between African tribes by offering money for captives taken from those constant battles between tribes. And of processing it and working it through, etc.
I cared tremendously about the characters and the story itself. It is very powerful emotionally and I was moved to tears several times by it. Great performances by virtually everyone in the film.
Viola Davis created a production company, JuVee, to create more prestige roles for black actors and through that she developed and pitched this to TriStar, a division of Sony. It’s absolutely going to be nominated—and deservedly so—for multiple Oscar categories. I think it will probably win best picture. It’s that good.
Go see it!
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