The Birth of a Nation – first look review

Giv­en the pub­lic out­rage that greet­ed this year’s Acad­e­my Awards nom­i­na­tions – swift­ly dubbed #OscarsSoWhite on social media – it seems inevitable that Nate Parker’s labour-of-love peri­od dra­ma would gain some trac­tion upon pre­mier­ing at Sun­dance. But even the actor-turned-writer/di­rec­tor could not have fore­seen the extent to which Hol­ly­wood would attempt to cov­er its tracks. Net­flix report­ed­ly offered up $20m after see­ing it. An under­stand­ably delight­ed Park­er opt­ed instead for a still record­ing-break­ing fee of $17.5m from Fox Search­light, so that the mes­sage of his fact-based film might reach a wider audience.

To be clear, The Birth of a Nation is a thor­ough­ly com­mer­cial propo­si­tion on screen, its vio­lence off­set, to some extent, by an air of mawk­ish­ness, some­times bor­der­ing on twee. In less­er hands, the tone of the piece would have been its undo­ing. But Park­er – who quit act­ing in 2013 to com­plete this hand­some­ly shot fea­ture – is clear­ly aware of the bal­ance required to entice main­stream audi­ences. There are some toe-curl­ing moments of tor­ture, but we are spared the gra­tu­itous images of the sex­u­al vio­lence that takes place off cam­era. An inti­mate nude scene between the film’s hero, Nat Turn­er (played by Park­er, on blis­ter­ing form), and his new­ly­wed wife (Aja Nao­mi King) is beau­ti­ful­ly realised (Parker’s DoP is Elliott Davis, of Out of Sight and Twi­light fame). Even the mass hang­ings that fol­low Turner’s 48-hour slave rebel­lion of 1831 are taste­ful­ly pre­sent­ed. Bet­ter still, Turner’s (and Parker’s) fired-up spir­it shines bright­ly and defi­ant­ly throughout.

What sets The Birth of a Nation apart from its most obvi­ous and recent cousin, 12 Years a Slave, isn’t its visu­al imagery, though (Steve McQueen’s film is cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly supe­ri­or, no doubt owing to a far big­ger bud­get), but its remark­ably con­tem­po­rary feel. That is, once again, down to Park­er and his extra­or­di­nary per­for­mance – at once ten­der and lov­ing and, when duty calls, res­olute and fear­less. While preach­ing the gospel to oth­er slaves, in an effort from white landown­ers to quell dis­con­tent (his white mas­ter, played by Armie Ham­mer, col­lects the fees), Parker’s switch from obe­di­ent ser­vant to inspired, empow­ered speak­er is elec­tri­fy­ing. The bloody upris­ing that fol­lows is riv­et­ing and gut-wrench­ing in its inten­si­ty, no mat­ter how famil­iar some of the sequences may feel in their exe­cu­tion. A num­ber of spar­ing­ly used dream sequences add an air of mys­tique that begs to be explored and expand­ed, should a grander cut emerge in the months ahead.

Best of all, Park­er appar­ent­ly chose the title of his film as a whole­sale rebuke to DW Grif­fiths’ silent film from 1915, which traced the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. At a time when so few sto­ries about – or fea­tur­ing – African-Amer­i­cans are made, Parker’s resolve with the project (made with­out stu­dio back­ing) should act as a clar­i­on call to inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers every­where. He may well make more sophis­ti­cat­ed-look­ing films in the future, with a more size­able bud­get at his dis­pos­al, but this will stand tall as a career-defin­ing moment, and a tow­er­ing achieve­ment of the spir­it of sto­ry­telling and performance.

The one down­side to the film’s buzz here is that the stu­dio that snapped it up has already indi­cat­ed that this will be the only African-Amer­i­can-focused fea­ture it will release this year. If that does indeed prove to be the case, Parker’s out­rage and res­olute deter­mi­na­tion to try and shift the sta­tus quo will be more war­rant­ed than ever. This is an excep­tion­al, life-chang­ing moment for the 36-year-old – and one, we hope, that stirs a sea-change in the indus­try at large.