Black movies travel transcends beyond the surface of the story being told, with classical films that keeps you engrossed in a tapestry of genres.
Love And Basketball
Monica and Quincy grew up in the same neighborhood and have been friends since childhood. From a tender age, they both realize they share a passion and love for basketball. Different career paths, through high school and college basketball, they followed suit and hoped for a shot at the pro league to play professionally.
The struggle with determination and a zeal to win is shown from a female athlete’s perspective on playing basketball in a male-dominated industry especially as an African-American woman was not easy. This film uses sports as a metaphor for life, and love has definitely gone on to inspire the production of films similar to this many years later.
Sanaa Lathan portrays a driven, hot-tempered tomboy Monica, who is passionate about basketball. Omar Epps plays Quincy, the son of an NBA player with pro dreams. From the moment we are introduced to both characters, we know they’re both destined for one another. The warmth of their love led them to battle each other in a basketball game to win each other’s hearts.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
They’re so many layers this film conveys. An incredible tale on a woman’s journey with friendship, being a single working mom, finding herself and risking it all for love.
Stella Payne (Angela Bassett) is so focused on getting her life figured out that she’s forgotten how to live life. She takes a trip to Jamaica with her best friend Delilah (Whoopi Goldberg). The trip in turn ends up as an exhilarating voyage of self-discovery for Stella as she learns to open her heart and find love with a man who’s 20 years her junior!
This film revolves around a topic that is discussed and is sometimes frowned upon in certain parts of the world. What happens when age becomes more than just a number, the idea of sexual tourism, cultural differences, and the sexuality of women in their 40s.
The beautiful thing about this film throughout the scenes is the friendship between Stella and Delilah.
When Delilah is introduced, there is a great exchange between her and Stella. Their banter feels so real and honest, and their friendship is the light that carries this movie.
When Delilah gets sick, it’s such an emotional section of the film. We see them together in a hospital bed, still laughing and making jokes. Dancing to music and strolling down memory lane. The friendship was an anchor point for Stella, a guiding light. Similar to all good friendships.
Whether or not Winston is the love of Stella’s life is inconsequential. The fact that she dared to do something that made her happy is what really sells the movie.
This movie is a classic for a reason.
Waiting To Exhale
This film portrays the sisterhood of four African women. It also highlights the struggles faced by women in today’s modern world.
These women find themselves navigating through their careers, family, and romance, bonding over a similar issue in their love life, a need for a good man.
Finding out you’re the other woman can be a heavy pain to live through
Savannah (Whitney Houston) and Robin (Lela Rochon) are always in relationships with married men, each believing their lovers will leave their wives for them. On the other side, Bernadine (Angela Bassett) ends up alone when her husband divorces her for his white mistress. Meanwhile, Gloria (Loretta Devine) finds love with a new neighbor.
The common theme with a critical view on Waiting to Exhale is women holding back on their dreams, and goals, and not standing up for what they want in marriages and relationships. Another view is trying to make their source of happiness far from their greatest self-desires.
At various points in the movie, the women
“exhale”
but its often in the midst of or following what will turn out to be a fleeting moment with a man.
Through a year of experiences and support for each other, showing the depth of their sisterhood and how they’re each willing to be there for each other. Laughing through the pain, calling each other out and finally forging ahead as they come to realize that what they were looking for in men was something they should have been trying to build within themselves.
In addition to being a classic movie, there’s depth in terms of a structured storyline and visuals. The soundtrack was also phenomenal, still resonating with music across the globe today.
Set It Off
“Set It Off”
is a crime thriller about four black women who rob banks for survival. However, the movie captures more than that. The lives of these women are informed and shown with a keen jolt of the reality of many.
A film that makes you to feel the emotions of every character, their motive, their zeal and their push, you start to care as the characters resonate with you.
The beauty of this film is special as it shows determination, risk, the need to provide for family. It showcases the motivations of four women living through their lives in economic crisis. The film makes a case for a mixture of emotions
survival, desperation, need, impulsiveness, and sisterhood that takes the characters from being regular women with an everyday lifestyle to being famous over a heist.
The movie allows views to becond more aware of the economic struggles of the characters showing unemployment and the need to provide for a family leading to anger.
Set It Off is about the buried realities of an economic system. Through the movie, we see that the system expect women to lead lives the system does not allow them to afford thus forcing them to survive solely on what they have.
One clue to the depth of Set It Off was grounded in close observation of women’s harsh realities.
A film that where it’s materials produces rawness, sharp edges, bitter satire, an observation rather than a pass.
Brown Sugar
Two childhood friends Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) and Dre (Taye Diggs) grew up in a black neighborhood with a love of hip-hop. They eventually turned their passion into successful careers. However, with all the success amassed they’ve found less success in their love lives, still maintaining their friendship, especially through their passion for hip-hop.
In their neighborhood, Hip-hop was their passion. The film shows the passion of young people. This film made hip-hop realistic and one which a successful career path can be carved from.
The characters portray their value and appreciation for hip-hop music, rather than just making it a likeness for mainstream rap. The film is about characters with ambition, a goal, humor, lifestyle, adulthood, and hard decisions.
For both Sidney and Dre, hip-hop music symbolizes a perfect adolescent innocence. They discovered hip-hop together and it is a major part of their friendship.
Love is very important and is the main theme of Brown Sugar. Beyond success in one’s personal life, which is measured primarily by marriage in this movie, financial success is also valued. All lead characters of this movie live off of “respectable” careers. Meanwhile, drugs and violence are barely mentioned, if not at all. It shows that hip-hop fans are not necessarily unstable and uncultured.
Like friendship, marriage is also a very important symbol of a connection between
two people.
However, the most apparent symbol of the movie is when they are mistaken as a couple. Their connection was the most important aspect of the film.
The interweaving of hip-hop elements also sets the movie apart. It remains a strong link between the two characters and a connection that feels raw and real in a warm and enjoyable way that celebrates pursuing your dreams, as much as romantic love.
#Clique, what are your thoughts on these films, what aspect of the theme resonates with you?
