Man­grove – first-look review

‘Black Own­er­ship’ read the sign in the win­dow of Frank Crichlow’s Man­grove restau­rant. Not­ting Hill in 1968 was a sanc­tu­ary for West Indi­an peo­ple, invit­ed to help rebuild Britain after the war, a place to call home. The sign was not there to sig­nal where to throw your mon­ey in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty, but to sig­ni­fy safe­ty and com­fort to the Black peo­ple it catered to.

Steve McQueen’s Man­grove first cen­tres on the ​“state spon­sored attempt to shut down [Crichlow’s] busi­ness”, as stat­ed by Leti­tia Wright’s British Black Pan­ther leader Altheia Jones-LeCointe. The sec­ond half of the film focus­es on the Man­grove Nine tri­al, a claus­tro­pho­bic 55 day legal pro­ceed­ing involv­ing nine Black activists who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a demon­stra­tion against the inces­sant, vio­lent police raids of the Man­grove – three of whom rep­re­sent­ed them­selves in court.

McQueen’s deft direc­tion cre­ates a pres­sure cook­er envi­ron­ment, relay­ing a world that forced men like Frank (Shaun Parkes) to be more than restau­rant own­ers but activists in defence of their right to live peace­ful­ly. Frank built a home for him­self and his com­mu­ni­ty, con­tort­ing it to the ever-chang­ing con­fines of the law until he had no room to twist.

Unable to con­tin­ue mis­plac­ing his faith in the estab­lish­ment, Frank turns inward to the British Black Pan­thers. After per­sis­tent police pres­ence drove reg­u­lar cus­tomers away, the Pan­thers turned the Man­grove into a com­mu­ni­ty hub. Their demon­stra­tion drew rough­ly 150 pro­tes­tors and more than twice as many police.

The main ensem­ble of Frank, Altheia, Dar­cus Howe (Malachi Kir­by) and Bar­bara Beese (Rochen­da San­dall) are brought to life with immense ten­der­ness by the ensem­ble. The anx­i­ety and furi­ous deter­mi­na­tion we read on the lines of Frank’s face can also be heard in the unwa­ver­ing clar­i­ty of Altheia’s voice, seen in the slant of Dar­cus’ shoul­ders and the curl of Barbara’s lip.

Shot on 35mm by first time McQueen col­lab­o­ra­tor Sha­bier Kirch­n­er, the visions of food, fash­ion and late ​’60s Lon­don feel torn straight from a fam­i­ly pho­to album. The many joy­ous moments in the film brim with warmth and song, before being abrupt­ly cut short. The inten­si­ty of the sound design is breath­tak­ing – as mem­o­rable as the Caribbean sound­track is the exas­per­at­ing sound as the nine enter the Old Bai­ley for the first time, a noise like a stretched police siren.

The sti­fling sequences of police bru­tal­i­ty are visu­al­ly unfa­mil­iar in this con­text: we know it hap­pened – and hap­pens. McQueen choses to share this buried sto­ry with total rev­er­ence and care for the archi­tects of our col­lec­tive his­to­ry. Mas­ters of look-over-there, anti-Black racism is not a defin­ing fea­ture of British his­to­ry in the pub­lic con­scious. The onus is then expect­ed to fall on those who sur­vived the bru­tal­i­ty to record the his­to­ry – a task some­times impos­si­ble when all that’s desired is to live a life.

Man­grove is a nec­es­sary and exhil­a­rat­ing illus­tra­tion of the stay­ing pow­er of Black Britons. We were not docile in the face of bru­tal­i­ty, we were deci­sive and self-deter­mined. McQueen reminds us that we are not invent­ing the wheel, and that only the knowl­edge and preser­va­tion of his­to­ry can lead us forward.

Man­grove pre­miered at the New York Film Fes­ti­val. It will screen lat­er this year on BBC One and BBC iPlay­er as part of Small Axe, a col­lec­tion of five films cre­at­ed by Steve McQueen.