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Steve McQueen continues his “Small Ax” anthology on the West Indian community of London with this portrait of the formative years of the eponymous writer during the period of the Brixton uprising in 1981.
At the beginning of Steve McQueen Alex Wheatle, the young protagonist whose name gives the film its title arouses the derision of a hairdressing salon filled with Londoners of West Indian origin by revealing that he does not consider himself African. “I might be black, but I’m from Surrey,” says the young Briton, abandoned by his Jamaican parents, who grew up in the careless foster care system of social services. The words of his bibliophile cellmate towards the end of the film come as a direct rebuke to his informed cultural identity: “Education is key. See, if you don’t know your past, you won’t know your future. “
Wheatle, played as a child by Asad-Shareef Muhammad and a teenager by Sheyi Cole, is the widely translated author of over 15 young adult novels, who received an MBE in 2008 for his services to literature. His story of finding a path forward from his troubled beginnings satisfactorily fits into McQueen’s frame. Small ax Amazon and BBC anthology, on the self-determination of the West Indian community in London, moving from the marginalization of a society to racism, classism and cruel injustice.
Co-written by McQueen with Alastair Siddons, who also scripted the Mangrove and Education episodes, Alex Wheatle focuses on a slender chapter in the life of the protagonist. He graciously moves back and forth between his traumatized early childhood, his adolescence in which he discovered a sense of community, and his incarceration after participating in the Brixton riots of 1981. At a fraction of over an hour, the film does not correspond to the narrative scope of Mangrove or Red, white and blue. It also doesn’t have the enveloping privacy of Rock lovers, the only Small ax entry not based on a true story. But his low-key celebration of resilience and hope makes this compelling snapshot very much in keeping with the deeply personal nature of this project for McQueen.
Like the aforementioned dialogue, there’s also a visual that sums up Alex’s awakening self-identity with surprisingly effective. While sharing the discovery of reggae music at school with his classmate Valin (Elliot Edusah), he fights with a racist white student and is kicked out by security. As they tie Alex up and toss him to the floor in a secluded room, DP Shabier Kirchner’s camera draws his penetrating gaze to his stunned, angry face in a slow panning that moves, lingering long enough to leave us deeply distressed then move back. It’s as succinct a depiction of the harsh dehumanization and stirring awareness of a brutalized minority as I can remember.
Alex is first seen as a young man led to his prison cell by a callused guard. He meets his Rastafarian cellmate Simeon (Robbie Gee), a friendly guy crowned with a voluminous cascade of dreadlocks, whose warm welcome is undermined by the unpleasant effect of his explosive innards in close quarters. The raw vulnerability of promising newcomer Cole’s performance burns in their physical altercation, as the beefy Simeon towers over Alex, insisting on hearing his story, and the latter cries out through tears of anger: “I have no crazy story. “
Editors Chris Dickens and McQueen go back to Alex’s roots as an illegitimate child in care in 1964. Details of his case are heard in a voiceover with unfeeling detachment – few friends, chronic bedwetting, asthmatic , suffers from eczema – as his white housewife mom (Ashley McGuire) is shown physically and verbally abusing the boy for his alleged transgressions.
His world opens up when he is placed in his late teens in a social services youth hostel in the multicultural district of Brixton in south London. There, he meets Dennis (Jonathan Jules), a big boy who treats Alex under his wing, giving him a makeover that includes pointers to a more confident leg in scenes that inject understated humor. In a charming interlude, Dennis invites Alex to Christmas lunch with his family. The guest’s unfamiliarity with such a warm, easy-going environment affects quietly, and the way he eats his food suggests the difficulties of growing up in difficult institutions.
Alex’s love for music blossomed during this time, spending all the money he had at a local record store. He reconnects with Valin and the two begin a DJ operation, with Alex writing lyrics about Brixton’s life. Around this time, he also got his first glimpse of the blatantly discriminatory practices of the London police, witnessing random harassment or unprovoked assaults that deride his naive belief that the cops are ‘here to help’. As in others Small ax Entries, the idea that British politeness prevents open expressions of racial hatred is quickly dismantled.
The biggest revelation for Alex is the tragedy of the New Cross fire in 1981, in which 13 young blacks were killed and many more injured. Although the cause was never established and no arrests were made, an act of arson was suspected, triggering a wave of protests as the Thatcher government remained silent. McQueen makes the major choice to show both the wreckage of the fire and the protests exclusively in black and white newsreel photos, accompanied by the scorching verses of “New Crass Massakah” by the Jamaican spoken word artist. Linton Kwesi Johnson.
Unrest in the black community escalates, leading to the Brixton Uprising, which is portrayed on a small scale but with visceral force, as young black men, including Alex, face cops with riot shields.
It was during his subsequent imprisonment that Simeon expanded Alex’s education by explaining to him the importance of reading, starting with CLR James’ The Black Jacobins. Trinidadian socialist historian’s 1938 book also appears in McQueen’s Mangrove, one of the many discreet thematic links that link the Small ax anthology together despite the range of styles of the films. The frame here also echoes Mangrove, evoking the streets and markets of Brixton with an energetic sense of place comparable to the images in this pre-gentrification film Notting Hill. The reggae soundtrack further adds to Alex’s immersive portrayal of progressive self-discovery, the buoyancy and freedom of music contrasting with the confinement of cramped places like his jail cell and hostel room.
The film’s conclusion is both abrupt, in the sense that it makes Alex’s life feel like it’s only just begun in earnest, and relevant in his delicate portrayal of the artist as a young man. Slipping through his social services file, he reads the clinical details described therein and absorbs the indifferent perspective of his life experience, resolving on the spot to reunite with his family and try his hand at writing. Maybe more than with any of the others Small ax movies to date, it’s easy to imagine an analogous epiphany in the youth of young McQueen.
Production companies: BBC Film, Turbine Studios, Lammas Park, in association with Amazon Studios, Emu Films
Distributor: Amazon, BBC
Interpretation: Sheyi Cole, Robbie Gee, Jonathan Jules, Elliot Edusah, Fumilayo Brown-Olateju, Ashley McGuire, Asad-Shareef Muhammad, Leah Walker, Johann Myers, Louis J. Rhone, Riley Burgin, Zakiyyah Deen, Khali Best, Dexter Flanders, Xavien Russell, Cecilia Noble, Ross Cahill, Lennox Tuitt, Shanelle Young
Director: Steve McQueen
Screenwriters: Alastair Siddons, Steve McQueen
Producers: Michael Elliott, Anita Overland
Executive Producers: Tracey Scoffield, David Tanner, Steve McQueen
Director of Photography: Shabier Kirchner
Production designer: Helen Scott
Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran
Editors: Chris Dickens, Steve McQueen
Interpretation: Gary Davy
66 minutes
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