The writer/director/star of Chameleon Street talks about his groundbreaking, suppressed 1990 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film, and its new 4K restoration.
With every new story, director Barry Jenkins argues for hope
The director of Moonlight and The Underground Railroad keeps reaching for connection
Photo: Amazon Studios
At first glance, the epic 10-hour series
The Underground Railroad seems to operate counter to filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ hope-inducing repertoire. Nobody puts Black love on the screen the way Jenkins does, and that’s because the Best Picture-winning filmmaker loves every facet of Blackness, from the luminescent beauty of Black skin to the therapeutic joys Black folks find in each other. But what beauty exists in a slave narrative? What joy?
The Underground Railroad appears antithetical to the hallmarks of Jenkins’ past works.
Soul, including the ending.]
is Pixar’s first film with a Black protagonist, but the story never accepts the narrative complexities of Blackness. It’s a film where the Black character is either a blue blob or a cat for much of the action, but is rarely in his own Black body. It’s a film where a supposedly raceless character takes over a Black body, causing the Black character to minimize his own dreams for a symbiotic good.
Soul opens as a story about finding individual purpose in life. But when the nebulous character 22 enters the fray, the animated jazz odyssey becomes a wholly different tale.