Antoine Fuqua's Emancipation is a massive betrayal of its historical subject. A betrayal so complete, it makes it doubly painful: it is neither a history lesson nor a decent film. Instead, we get a cartoon narrative devoid of any dramatic tension. Violent episodes happen, that’s true, but they are presented as punctuation, not plot-driving, weighty events. It doesn't help that screenwriter Bill Collage's credits include Assassin's Creed and a biblical epic.
The bulk of the story follows a chase between two cardboard cut-outs: a runaway slave (a one-note Will Smith) and his handler (a one-and-a-half-note Ben Foster). The hero is unswervingly good, the antagonist simplemindedly evil. In case you’re not paying attention, it’s biblical – Emancipation devotes more screen time to Christian-themed dialogue and imagery than to building authentic characters and compelling plot structure.
All of this is supported by an unfortunate choice to randomly desaturate the picture. As if the makers couldn’t fully commit to straight black & white. Some faces are rendered in faded colour, others in greyscale. Some foliage is greenish, some is not. Selective flames are orange, whereas big fires burn without hue. It all makes very little aesthetic sense, disorienting the viewer instead.
Then, there is the swamp duel with an alligator. I kid you not when I say the octopus fight in Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster was more believable. It is a major WTF moment destined for social media.
Ultimately, the chase film ends as a war movie. The climactic Civil War battle lacks any sense of drama or tension. Unbelievably, some of Fuqua’s staging strongly recalls Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, but without any discernible flair. I’m sure Fuqua didn’t mean it as a tribute to that KKK-glorifying picture. Why the uncanny similarities, then? Where is his own style so vividly demonstrated in the terrific Training Day? The director is so out of his depth with this material, he should have known better. Thirty-plus years of progressively undemanding action thrillers is not a good resume for an abolitionist epic.
Emancipation fails as a celebration of a pivotal historical event. It fails as good cinema. I felt insulted afterwards. And sad at the lost opportunity.
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