Black Panther
An event, and a process.
+: cast, production design, direction, soundtrack
-: some illogical worldbuilding, slightly generic plot
Before the release of Black Panther, some members of the so-called ‘alt-right’ attempted to argue that this was somehow their film, majority-black cast be damned; after all, this was supposedly a film starring a king (not even a president) leading an isolated, homogenous ethnostate. In the months since, this argument has completely died.
It’s not difficult to see why; within three minutes, Black Panther piledrives through the layers of this argument. The prologue establishes how Wakanda is a land of five tribes, a multicultural utopia (although we see the River, Border and Jabari tribes the most — the Hufflepuff Houses will have to wait until the sequel). And the next scene proper opens in Oakland, 1992, time and place rooted in black history.
Isolationism, meanwhile, would be the debate of the film if the argument didn’t collapse with ease. Instead, the issue becomes how to engage, not if. Again, sequels will have to carry the consequences of this — the film itself settles for a simple announcement to the world about Wakanda existing like it does.
Which leaves monarchy. Black Panther never quite deals with the actual details of its political and economic system (vibranium appears to be at least a partially state-run affair, but the rest of Wakanda could be anything from pure free market to mixed-economy to Leninist to post-scarcity), but what we see suggests a UAE/Qatari style absolute monarchy.
This, of course, makes no sense — in reality, said political systems abuse human rights all over and indulge in vast amounts of corruption and nepotism. It’s unclear if T’Challa being surrounded by his close family and associates is a nod to this reality, or a kind of worldbuilding shorthand, the organisation-as-treehouse approach often seen on Star Trek or at the DEO in the Supergirl TV series. Either way, it feels a little nonsensical — as does the semi-hereditary system where ritual combat decides both head of state and the role of Black Panther (indeed, Killmonger’s very presence demonstrates why the whole setup’s a bad idea).
Ryan Coogler, called up for his first blockbuster (Creed being a $40m low-to-mid budget effort) nails the direction. It helps that he has rural central Africa available, which means he can point at a grassland, a river, or a sunset and get a fantastic shot with seemingly no effort. But Coogler’s ambitions go beyond this: see also the long take during the casino fight, or the revolving shot of Killmonger assuming the throne.
The production design is impeccable too, right down to the details — see the bottomless crate used as a basketball hoop, or the chirping of the Kimoyo beads (naturally, you can buy these as merchandise, although its odd how no-one in tech — whether Apple or Elon Musk — has announced making real versions, which would surely outsell the Apple Watch).
Black Panther is an unprecedented film in some ways, but in others it learns solid lessons from prior efforts in superhero cinema. For example, what distinguished The Dark Knight from prior films was its use and character and theme, and the way it effectively made both of them coterminous by establishing a strong theme, and then placing its characters on a spectrum of opinion (Harvey Dent and the Joker being the extremes, which both prove fragile compared to Lucius Fox’s solid centrism). In Black Panther, the spectrum is already in motion, the old guard of T’Chaka and Zuri dead by the end of the film, but there’s a lively interplay between Killmonger, W’Kabi, Okoye, Shuri and T’Challa.
Killmonger has a certain commonality with Heath Ledger’s Joker — his ostensible allies, even the otherwise savvy Klaue, underestimate his intelligence and sociopathy until it’s too late; he presents his enemies with impossible choices, resulting in divide-and-conquer tactics (although Wakanda isn’t nearly as brittle a community as Gotham City). And Killmonger presents himself as an unpredictable wild card, whilst in reality having a plan at every stage and a grand truth he aims to prove.
The third act showdown is a little perfunctory, but in the end, what’s striking about Black Panther is its confidence. If The Avengers conflated text and metatext, the characters’ victory within the film blurring with the audience’s willingness for the film to be good, Black Panther attempts to sell viewers on its importance, its final scene’s focus a group of awed Oakland youths. It’s a risky move — if Black Panther had received poor reviews or low box-office take, said scene would be the height of arrogance. But we know what happened next: the MCU took something apparently risky, and turned it into something inevitable: as of 2018, every film involving T’Challa has outgrossed every film involving Batman.
High Points: “this never gets old”, most of the action scenes.
Low Points: after several subversions of usual superhero endings in the MCU, we end this one with a big battle scene. Zuri goes curiously unmourned, and Nakia steals just one herb? Hopefully Shuri has genetic codes on file.
Curios: hoverbeds and weird, graphite-y 3D projections seem like energy-intensive solutions, done because they can. On the other hand, the distribution of high-rises across the Golden City suggests the sort of polycentric layout to make urban planners everywhere swoon.
Flagrant Product Placement: despite being an isolated country, Wakanda uses Lexus.
Connections to Elsewhere: back to Captain America: Civil War (Everett Ross) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (Klaue), and forward to Avengers: Infinity War. The Ancestral Plain remains ambiguous, waiting to show up in a Doctor Strange sequel. Curiously, the initial Killmonger strikes are planned for London, New York and Hong Kong — the locations of the Sanctums.
Stan Lee Cameo: Stan holds T’Challa’s winnings for ‘safekeeping’. Sure, Stan: we believe you. (8/10)
End Credits: T’Challa speaks at the UN, coming across like a public-sector Steve Jobs (6/10); the Winter Soldier is now fixed — well, apart from the arm thing (6/10).
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Next: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
