an act of defiance movie review

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An Act of Defiance

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Peter Paul Muller (Bram Fischer) Antoinette Louw (Molly Fischer) José Domingos (Percy Yutar) Conrad Kemp (Joel Joffe) Sello Motloung (Nelson Mandela) Daniel Janks (George Bizos) Morné Visser (Officer Dirker) Fezile Mpela (Bruno Mtolo) Willie Esterhuizen (Lieutenant Swanepoel) Izel Bezuidenhout (Ilse Fischer) Hannes Brummer (Bob Hepple) Zak Hendrikz (Dave Kitson) John-Henry Opperman (Denis Goldberg) Dan Robbertse (Judge de Wet) Russel Savadier (Sir Harry Oppenheimer) Sylvaine Strike (Hilda Bernstein) Jana Kruger (Shirley Hepple) Leroux van Diemen (Paul Fischer)

Jean van de Velde

In apartheid-ruled South Africa, a renowned lawyer struggles to hide his secret affiliation to the nation's chief resistance movement - as he takes on defending a group of its arrested members, including its leader, Nelson Mandela.

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By Peter Feldman

4 minute read

26 Apr 2019

An Act of Defiance review – Brilliant account of Bram Fischer

The film has a potent message to impart, especially in the lead-up to the election in may..

An Act of Defiance. Picture: Supplied

An Act of Defiance is one of those films that will remain with you long after the images have disappeared from the screen.

This production is a vivid, brilliantly depicted account of the significant role Afrikaner advocate Bram Fischer played in the struggle for freedom, and in the riveting Rivonia Trial.

Dutch director Jean Van De Velde captures the ’60s era in great detail, recalling its style and production values, the tingling atmosphere surrounding the ANC’s fight for survival during the dark days of apartheid.

Bram Fischer, superbly portrayed by Peter Paul Miller, is the focus of this biopic which delves a little more deeply into this revolutionary Afrikaner man’s life and his politics. If it were not for his heroic fight to save Nelson Mandela and the other plotters from the gallows, history may have taken a very different course.

The film wastes little time in getting into the gritty elements of the story. In the brutal opening scenes we witness a captured ANC cadre being tortured by the notorious State Security police. They want details about Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia and in particular, one of the ANC leaders, Walter Sisulu. The man’s interrogation subsequently leads to a police raid on the farm on a cold winter’s morning on July 11, 1963.

Nine black and white leaders of the banned ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) are arrested. And a 10th member, arrested earlier, is added to the group of nine – Nelson Mandela.

The apartheid regime’s objective was to bring these “freedom fighters” to court and have them sentenced to death. This strategy that would serve as a warning to their fellow activists and get rid of some of apartheid’s feared enemies. In essence, what the Nationalist government intended to do was decapitate the liberation movement.

Those arrested are in dire need of an advocate to defend them, but there are not many takers, except for Bram Fischer. A widely respected legal mind, he also hesitates. He is the dean of the Bar Association, counsel for major mining magnates and scion of a prominent Afrikaans family.

But he hesitates for other reasons: he has a secret that only a few people and his wife, Molly Fischer (Antoinette Louw), know. Bram should have been the 11th accused, and it was only by chance that he was not present at the farm when his fellow activists were arrested.

He decides to take on the defence. During the trial Bram has to unravel the prosecutor’s manipulated evidence and expose bribed or tortured witnesses, he must also protect himself from detection by witnesses.

During the trial Bram sees more and more reasons to move away from his principle of non -violence and becomes prepared to support violent sabotage and the armed uprising of the people.

The death penalty for the accused could be the spark that ignites the powder keg, and parallel to the trial Bram is trying to organise underground resistance.

The supporting cast is excellent and includes Jorge Domingos as prosecutor Dr Percy Yutar, Morné Visser as the dreaded Officer Dirker, Sello Motloung as Mandela, Daniel Janks as George Bizos, Greg Viljoen as Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein and Josias Moleele as Sisulu.

The script is intelligently conceived. Not only does it stick doggedly to the facts, it goes to great lengths to paint a striking picture of the era, the people and their politics.

An Act of Defiance is a meticulously researched production and the actions of the key players are acurately represented.

The film has a potent message to impart, especially in the lead-up to the election in May. I highly recommend the film, which has already garnered some major awards.

Somebody once said: “History must repeat itself because we don’t pay much attention to it the first time.” Too true!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Cast: Peter Paul Muller, Jorge Domingos, Antoinette Louw, Izel Bezuidenhout, Morne Visser, Sello Motloung Director: Jean van de Velde Classification: 10-12 PGDPV

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Disney’s Encanto isn’t just about representation — it’s an act of defiance

The animated film gets to the heart of the Colombian experience that many might overlook

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If the questions I repeatedly answered on first dates while living in Los Angeles were any indication, Americans tend to think of Colombia as a violent, drug-ridden failed state, half-slum and half-jungle, which also happens to be the source of their coffee and Sofía Vergara. But who can blame them? They mostly learned about Colombia from movies and television, and there isn’t much room for nuance in the exoticism of 1984’s Romancing the Stone , the cartel violence of Netflix’s Narcos series, or Gloria’s humorous otherness in ABC’s sitcom Modern Family .

So when Disney announced Encanto , a new animated feature that takes place in my home country of Colombia, it was admittedly exciting and validating.

This excitement had its caveats. Disney has a complicated history of depicting non-European cultures. Even beyond the clear cases of “This film was made in a different era,” such as the portrayal of Native-Americans in 1953’s Peter Pan or the softened racism of 1995’s Pocahontas , Disney creators still struggle with clichéd depictions of people of color, which understandably come under endless scrutiny in today’s more race-conscious environment.

Disney’s first Black protagonist, The Princess and the Frog ’s Tiana, was introduced in 2009. While she herself has become a popular figure, her movie took immediate flak for its handling of race . A few years later, Moana was generally well-received, but suffered its own criticisms from Pacific Islander communities . Still, it marked a clear turning point in the way the studio handled its non-white characters and settings. Moana found its heart in the amalgam of cultures it was portraying. Its nods to Polynesian culture aren’t just set-dressing, they’re key components of her story and its themes.

Enter Encanto , which isn’t just set in a pastiche of similar cultures, like Disney’s Latine-inspired show Elena of Avalor . Encanto writer-directors Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith wanted to explicitly set their story in the very real country of Colombia. Their company’s recent track record of representation was certainly a good sign, but Hollywood’s history of portraying Colombia was reason enough for doubts. These concerns all found a place amid the collective Colombian excitement as Encanto ’s opening night approached, but for me, at least, they disappeared a few minutes into the movie’s prologue. Once we learn that the central family, the Madrigals, like millions of real Colombians , have been displaced from their home by that abstract, omnipresent force we tend to simply call The Violence, it seemed evident that Bush, Howard, and Smith weren’t just coming from a place of understanding, it was also a place of love.

Encanto tells the story of Mirabel Madrigal, who was born into a magical family where everyone has a special gift except her. One of her sisters is super-strong, another can produce flowers out of nowhere, her mom can cure any ailment with her food, and so forth. But Mirabel was never given a special gift, and her lack of powers is a regular source of tension between her and her Abuela.

These gifts aren’t innate. They are given to the family by a magical candle the Madrigals call “our miracle,” a force that saved Abuela and her three kids when she was young when they were forced to flee their hometown. As The Violence caught up with them, killing their Abuelo, the candle gave the surviving Madrigals a home: a magical house that became a source of refuge, comfort, and the subsequent generations’ special gifts.

The movie follows Mirabel as she sees that the house, their Casita , is starting to crack at the foundations, which her Abuela adamantly denies in an effort to maintain order. It’s up to Mirabel, the least special Madrigal, to find out what’s endangering their miracle and to protect the home that has protected her family all these years.

That quest to save her beloved house makes Encanto not just a story set in Colombia, but about Colombia as well. There’s nothing more Colombian than the desire to find a home in an inherently broken country.

Colombia’s problems are so intrinsic that being aware of them from birth almost seems necessary to feel Colombian at all. The genocidal conquest by Spain, as well as the subsequent decade-long independence process, set the stage for a very messy 200 years of history. Nine civil wars between liberals and conservatives during the 19th century resulted in an unsolvable national schism where the only overlap between the two sides was the exploitation and dismissal of a mostly racialized rural underclass. Class tensions steadily grew until the global advent of Communism gave birth to leftist guerrilla warfare, spawning fascist militias across the country in response. In this armed conflict , both sides eventually gave up ideology in favor of the blood-stained profits of drug trafficking.

This is a very brief and even generous summary of our national history, but it’s still more detailed than the image the First World tends to have of us. It makes sense, though, that as this violent environment became pervasive, most of the media made about us focused solely on that. The Violence, after all, stains almost every Colombian family. This focus on the country’s tensions happens in Colombian-made media too, as exemplified by the “ narco-novelas ” that clutter our networks. We have come to believe that this is all we get: an echo chamber of drugs, massacres, kidnappings, indifferent politicians, and a population that lacks memory, but still bears its baggage.

The Colombian Cultural Trust — a collection of consultants from a wide variety of fields, brought in to ensure the film’s authenticity — may have spoken to the writer-directors about this problem. Disney’s movie about our country couldn’t overtly include our violent past and present. But at some point, they decided not to ignore it, either. Disney’s Colombian movie centers on finding a place free of that innate suffering: a place its people can safely call home.

So how wonderful, really, that we get to indulge in the fun, the color, the joy of Encanto when so much of the media about ourselves is focused on these vicious cycles of violence that we’re trapped in. What a miracle that we still, after all this time, have such beautiful things for Disney to portray, from unique musical stylings to delicious food and a rich storytelling tradition. Just as the Madrigals discovered, it’s a miracle that we can still share these gifts at all.

“Representation matters” has become a cliché, especially since representation only superficially addresses the larger cultural problems of Hollywood media . However, there’s no denying that there is power in seeing your own world elevated to the ranks of iconic fairytales and animated blockbusters.

The Cultural Trust helped Encanto leave behind caricature and stereotypes to create something that rings true to its subjects. This approach, first implemented with the Oceanic Story Trust in the production of Moana , is proving to be a step in the right direction for Disney when it comes to telling stories outside of the European bubble.

Is this the product of a multi-billion-dollar corporation that’s coming to understand what good business it is to appeal to increasingly diverse markets? Of course, but that doesn’t prevent the smaller players within this system from approaching a personal project with love. They set out to create something that would resonate with people around the world — but also specifically with Colombians, knowing that we don’t always get to feel that way. And if initial reactions here in Colombia are any indication, the film is resonating. Not because of cynical corporate decisions, but because the artists behind the movie cared.

But this is about a lot more than just representation. The happiness portrayed in Encanto isn’t just escapism, it’s defiance. It’s about challenging that notion that we Colombians have to be miserable forever.

After arguing throughout the whole movie about how to save the house and who’s to blame for its impending destruction, the Madrigals ultimately have to accept that their miracle wasn’t the magical house, or their magical gifts. In fact, the miracle is that after all these years, the family has somehow figured out how to thrive in the face of tragedy. The magic gave them their Casita , sure, but they were the ones to create love, beauty, and community in it. A broken history got them there, but it’s a miracle that they’re still there regardless. And at the end of the day, that’s worth a lot.

In the process of deeply rooting the film in Colombian culture, whether through Lin-Manuel Miranda’s well-researched music that spans all sorts of regional genres or the unique cast of characters meant to encompass a weird and disparate country, Encanto celebrates the diversity of Colombia, the happiness to be found in its art, its nature, its heritage, and, more than anything, its people.

Perhaps the most telling detail is the deliberate choice to not give The Violence a face . If the brief history lesson above is any indication, this force that displaced the Madrigals could have been anything from militias to warlords. Sure, Disney was probably avoiding details because they’d be too graphic or complicated for young viewers (or, more cynically, because they might be taken as a political statement). But I choose to see it differently.

In Encanto , unlike all other American depictions of Colombia, there’s no room for The Violence or its perpetrators. The focus is on the survivors . It’s about the miracle of thriving when you seem almost cosmically predisposed to suffer ad infinitum. Because that’s what Colombia is: a country of people trying their best to thrive in spite of themselves.

We’re a country of Mirabels, all struggling to figure out how to fix these evils that seem like our birthright. Like Mirabel’s prognosticating Uncle Bruno, we’re overwhelmed with an undeniably dire future. Like Abuela, we sometimes fight to pretend these threats aren’t there, because we can’t bear the thought of facing them again. Like the Madrigals, we’re each trying to deal with all this alone — and realizing, perhaps through projects like Encanto , that maybe we don’t have to.

Encanto is in theaters and now streaming on Disney Plus.

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How Rustin's Colman Domingo Used His Physicality 'As An Act Of Defiance' In The Excellent New Netflix Movie

One of the best performances of the year.

Colman Domingo’s performance as the titular lead character in George C. Wolfe’s Rustin is fully transformative. It’s not just the sartorial choices, hairstyle and the glasses, and it’s not even the fake teeth or the unique dialect. His whole being becomes civil rights hero Bayard Rustin, in his appearance and his bold physicality. It’s a remarkable thing to witness, and in crafting his turn, it was a vital piece of the puzzle for the actor.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Colman Domingo last month during the virtual press day for Rustin , and I made a point of highlighting the special way that he disappears into the role. As Domingo explained, it was a part of the performance that was particularly important for him, as he views the man’s outward appearance and expressions as extensions of who he was as a person and what he stood for. Breaking it down, Domingo told me,

It did take a lot of work to just really work and find the nuance of the character. I didn't want to mimic who he was, but he was a character who sort of lived with a lot of size. You know, he spoke in this [voice] like three octaves higher than I do in this Mid-Atlantic standard accent that he sort of made up himself. You know, his teeth were knocked out by a police brutality incident years before. But he still, any images I saw, it wasn't like he was trying to hide it.

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As portrayed in the impressive new period film, Bayard Rustin was a key player in the American Civil Rights Movement – as he is even credited with sharing the philosophy of nonviolent resistance with Martin Luther King Jr . As a gay man who had ties to the communist party and was viewed as a controversial figure in the eyes of the NAACP, Rustin is a man you may not have learned about in school, but he played a vital role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

When Colman Domingo looked at images of the man during his preparation and saw him regularly showing off his broken smile, he gained a special understanding of him:

He smiled with reckless abandon, with joy, pure joy. And also it was a badge of honor. He was like, you know, this is what happened to me. I'm gonna show you the ills of our civilization and how I still fight against it. I'm still gonna have joy. That's what I took it as.

Seeing the way that Bayard Rustin broadly smiled was one thing, but another was recognizing how the man held himself. In studying the historical figure, Colman Domingo saw that he would frequently keep his arms spread out wide, which he psychoanalyzed as an act of rebellion. While society may have rejected many aspects of who Rustin was, he was insistent in making his presence known and his occupied space recognized. Domingo continued.

As an actor, I've always built my characters with images and make sure they have a physical life that is true to them, that may not be of my own, the way they move through space. I love the fact that I saw images of him holding his arms wide open. The idea for a Black man, Black Quaker man from Westchester, Pennsylvania to stand in a room with open arms, I think was an act of defiance.

When you watch Colman Domingo’s performance in Rustin , pay special attention to the way he occupies any room he is in. His personality is outsized, and his physical mannerisms are perfect representations of that.

It was important for Domingo to not let Bayard Rustin be seen as some kind of caricature, which could have easily happened by going so big, but he masters the nuances of the man in a way to make it all grounded and real. He concluded,

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I thought that I want to make sure that when he speaks, his arms are open wide. He moves in spaces and takes up space in rooms that were never trying to allow him to have space. So I think that's the way I constructed the character. And I knew that I wanted to make sure that he was whole and full so people can actually see a real person. And hopefully I infuse at least some of my soul into Bayard as well.

If you have a Netflix subscription and are using the coming weeks to catch up with all the great movies that have been released in 2023, be sure to do yourself a favor and add Rustin to your watchlist. You’ll not only witness a terrific performance from Colman Domingo, but learn remarkable things about a hidden figure in the Civil Rights Movement .

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

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AND THEN WE DANCED: A Rare Act Of Defiance

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I used to work in politics but film has always…

Levan Akin’s Georgian-set story of two gay dancers, And Then We Danced, is assuredly radical. It knows it is radical, it revels in it, simply because of what it is. Few films can lay claim to that. Georgia’s (in this case the country, not the southern U.S. state) anti-gay laws and attitudes made the making of this film fraught with danger. Some crew members had to remain anonymous throughout production and are even listed as such in the credits, and sets required heightened security in the face of protests. All of this, not to mention the other challenges inherent to the art of filmmaking, makes the mere existence of this movie a cause for celebration.

Akin , who is from Sweden but of Georgian descent, has defied the odds against him to create a thunderous, rapturous, film that revels in its own existence, because it means it represents something bigger than itself. I am reminded of a film from 2018 touching on similar themes, Rafiki , a Kenyan-set lesbian drama that questions a country’s hard and fast notions of sexuality, and posits a more authentic existence for its heroine. And Then We Danced draws its strength from a contrast of perspectives. Akin ’s introspection of identity and nationality lends itself to a generous outward view for his hero, Merab. For a movie like And Then We Danced, so steeped in the traditional culture of Georgian dance, to embrace its taboo subject matter is defiance, artistically rendered.

There is no sex in Georgian dance

There is an echoing percussion at the heart of And Then We Danced that propels it along; few moments feel slow, even if they technically are. This percussion not only informs the way we absorb the film, viscerally and without hesitation, but also the way the characters live through each moment; it guides their every move, both literally and figuratively. There is a labored, rhythmic joy to the traditional Georgian dance here. Its choreography is a precise staccato of swinging arms and pounding feet and bending knees. The best dancers perform it with such ease, so that you can marvel at the intricacy of their movement while feeling like they aren’t even trying. It’s only when the music stops that you can take a breath with the dancers and appreciate how taxing it is.

Merab (played by first time actor Levan Gelbakhiani ) is a gifted dancer, and a member of an elite group of young performers waiting for a chance to train with a professional company. His life is changed when the handsome and carefree Irakli ( Bachi Valishvili ) joins their company. His cavalier attitude is the antithesis of Merab’s, whose personal fulfillment from dance is weighed down by the fact that his family relies on him for money. But as their lives increasingly intersect, Merab recognizes Irakli as both his greatest competition and desire.

Akin ’s watchful eye appreciates all the different forces pulling at Merab. His domineering teacher emphasizes that there is no emotion, no sex in Georgian dance, a contrast to the labyrinthine emotional and sexual relationships between every dancer in the group. And we feel it, too, especially after Merab and Irakli have gotten to know each other both in and out of the studio. Their chemistry develops like you would expect: Irakli’s newness to the group makes Merab uneasy, especially given his talent and the fact that Merab recently injured his foot. But in social settings things are easier, and they take to each other well, until eventually something like love blossoms between them. 

That’s when things get complicated

It is only when the inevitable, divergent forces pull them apart that the real intent of And Then We Danced is clear. Make no mistake, And Then We Danced doesn’t attempt to rewrite the story of first love, because in one way it adheres to many of the same tropes you see in coming-of-age romances before it, and in another it really isn’t about first love at all. So while Merab’s life is complicated by his sometimes-romantic relationship with his dance partner, Mary; and we accompany him on a sweaty, drug-induced night of dancing with other queer people much more comfortable in their skin than him, this is not as far as the movie reaches. Merab and Irakli’s relationship is a lesson in self-actualization that, more than bringing Merab out of the closet, opens his eyes to possibilities outside his limited experiences. 

Gelbakhiani, a prodigiously talented dancer in his real life and first-time actor, is undeniably at home on the screen. He has a keen sense of space and awareness of what his body is doing that translates so well to his acting. He is emotionally sensitive and is able to bring that out in his dancing, a tool used throughout as a means of saying what your words often cannot, in a way that is shocking in its maturity but never closed off to the audience. His face is lean and angular, but as limber and pliable in its expressiveness as the rest of his body is. I hope this role can open doors for him to act again, because he has a real talent for it.

Merab and Irakli experience the highs and lows of first love we have come to expect in films like this, but the inevitable, tragic conclusion is followed by a realization that there is more the world can offer someone as open and willing as Merab. Ignoring the limitations of his injured foot he declares his independence to his teachers by performing what would have been his audition for the professional company. Though now it serves as the film’s combustive final act of defiance against archaic gendered expectations, for a young man who is deserving of something better.

What are your thoughts on  And Then We Danced ? Let us know in the comments.

And Then We Danced is out in limited release in the U.S. February 7.

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I used to work in politics but film has always called to me. Now I'm putting my love of the art form to use! I love social thrillers, coming-of-age tearjerkers, and pitch black comedies. The Coen Brothers, Olivier Assayas, Ingmar Bergman, Kelly Reichardt, and Andrew Haigh speak to me on a spiritual level. Enjoy!

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Bheed movie review: Filmmaking as an act of defiance

Anubhav Sinha’s account of migrant workers’ en masse return to their villages at the start of the pandemic is a basket of courage and convolutions in the writing of social divisions in the midst of a tragedy.

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Sushil Pandey, Aditya Srivastava, Pankaj Kapoor, Kritika Kamra, Ashutosh Rana, Virendra Saxena, Aditi Subedi

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Language: Hindi  

Two years back, in 2021, writer-director Vinod Kapri’s documentary 1232 Kms was released online. Set early in the COVID19 pandemic, it followed a group of male migrant workers from Ghaziabad in UP cycling all the way back to their home villages in Bihar following the abrupt declaration of a nationwide lockdown by the Central government in March 2020. The men were openly critical of the administration’s apathy towards them, and 1232 Kms bravely made no bones about who it held accountable. The film began with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech announcing the lockdown. It also described the movement of desperate workers during the pandemic as “the largest human exodus since the Partition of India”.

In 2023, freedom of expression in India has reached a stage where the latter two elements have created a storm in the context of a new project. Writer-director Anubhav Sinha ’s black-and-white fiction feature Bheed  (Crowd), also pegged on the migrant workers’ crisis, comes to theatres in the shadow of certain troubling developments: among them, Bheed ’s trailer was released, pulled down and an edited version re-released. Sinha confirmed what the media reported, that the trailer originally featured the PM’s address to the nation and mentioned the Partition. Having seen Bheed , I can confirm that the narrative in its entirety too does not contain either of these.

It is challenging to review a film when you are not sure how much of what you’ve seen is a product of the Censor Board’s scissors and/or fear of the Board. Bheed,  in the form that we get to see it, does not make any specific, overt reference to the current government, the governing party or any particular politician. The irony is that this serves to highlight the truth that the very act of making this film, thus addressing mis-governance during the pandemic, is courageous in the present political atmosphere.

Bheed ’s story is by Sinha, with the screenplay and dialogues credited to Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain. The film is set at the very start of the lockdown when workers had just begun an en masse return to their villages and even the rich were struggling to come to terms with the unprecedented restrictions. In this scenario, we meet Surya Kumar Singh (Rajkummar Rao), an ambitious policeman who belongs to an oppressed caste and is in love with a medical professional called Renu Sharma, played by Bhumi Pednekar. (Surya does not use his caste title – when he reveals it,  the reactions he attracts suggest that he is Dalit, although the only reference I could find online to that surname is regarding a real-life person claiming a Scheduled Tribe, not Scheduled Caste i.e. Dalit, certificate.) Renu is Brahmin. Surya’s colleague, Ram Singh (Aditya Srivastava), becomes resentful when their boss, Inspector Yadav (Ashutosh Rana), places the young man in charge of a police post at a state border that has been sealed.

Among the scores of people who arrive at the spot guarded by Surya and his team is a wealthy woman called Geetanjali (Dia Mirza) who is in a hurry to pick up her daughter from her hostel. Geetanjali fears that if her estranged husband gets there first, his early arrival will become a weapon in a bitter custody battle. She is accompanied by her driver Kanhaiya (Sushil Pandey). Also there is a busload of workers and their families, led by Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapoor) and Dubey (Virendra Saxena). A bedraggled young woman (Aditi Subedi) is trying to get her drunken father (Omkar Das Manikpuri) home. And a famous TV journalist (Kritika Kamra) zeroes in on this location for her reporting.

Bheed alludes to fake news spreading on social media and WhatsApp during the pandemic. Looming as a constant in the background without being spelt out is government indifference to the plight of the citizenry, especially the poor. The film’s predominant theme is neither though. Bheed ’s focus is social division rearing its head even in the midst of an unfolding tragedy, in particular, upper-caste prejudice, upper-class selfishness and religious bigotry.

The handling of casteism and religious sectarianism in the script yields mixed results. For instance, Trivedi’s sense of caste superiority and his Islamophobia triggered by propaganda against the Tablighi Jamaat are both established effectively. However, none of the Muslims he targets is a clearly defined character. The absence of an identifiable Muslim individual towards whom his meanness is directed considerably lessens the impact of those scenes. Trivedi’s conduct evokes revulsion, but the writing is at pains to offset these aspects of his character by shortly afterwards building him into a crusader for good, the leader of a rebellion at Surya’s check-post. This review is certainly not a call to paint any character in black or white alone. Not at all. But the characterisation of this man feels like a balancing act.

The writers are also unable to see Surya and Renu as just people, and instead view them almost solely through the lens of their respective caste identities. In their first scene together, the couple discuss the social disparity between them, and Surya repeatedly addresses her throughout as “Renu Sharma” and “Sharmaji”. We get it, her surname is Brahmin – the point is conveyed too self-consciously.

That said, Bheed is notable for being that rare contemporary, mainstream Hindi film to foreground caste (Sinha’s own Article 15 being another exception in this respect). It is also gutsy for Bheed to show a Dalit man and Brahmin woman in love, considering the circumstances in today’s India. A liaison between a man from a marginalised caste and an upper caste woman is far more likely to spark outrage and violence in the real world than a gender role reversal, because patriarchal societies view women as repositories of community honour and property that is passed on to their husband’s community after marriage. Bheed sticks its neck out in this matter.

Surya’s line to Renu, “Justice is always in the hands of the powerful, Sharmaji. If the powerless served justice, then justice would be different,” is well made. His hurt and anger at the humiliation he is subjected to despite his position of authority are also put across well. However, the alliance he forms just minutes later with the repugnantly casteist individual who demeaned him is unconvincing, and the conversation he has with his boss about wanting to be a hero is written clumsily. He also seems to need his upper-caste girlfriend’s guidance and/or goading every step of the way to become the man he wants to be – in bed and at work. In this aspect, especially, I missed the writing (by Gaurav Solanki and Sinha himself) of the clear-headed underground Dalit resistance leader Nishad in Article 15 .

Initially, Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao play off each other rather nicely, but after a while, their conversations are weighed down by a singular fixation on caste.

The absolute trough in the script though is the portrayal of the star journalist whose bleary dialogues are written like lines from a PhD thesis.

Where the script shines is in the writing of Geetanjali and Kanhaiya, the memsaab’s blinkered comments to her driver that could only come from a person who is completely oblivious to her extreme privilege and his lack of choice, and the warmth between them despite her I-me-myself approach to their equation. She is not painted as the devil incarnate and he is not romanticised as a saint, which is the most effective lead-up you could have to that crackerjack moment when a spontaneous act of kindness by Kanhaiya suddenly makes her aware of how incredibly self-centred she was being. Dia Mirza and Sushil Pandey are excellent in their respective roles.

In a cast packed with proven talents, the other actor who stands out is Aditya Srivastava as Surya’s colleague Ram Singh. The writing really comes together in his characterisation, and Srivastava is delightful in the way he depicts his resentment towards Surya and his casteist sneering without slacking off at work.

Since 2018, Anubhav Sinha has earned a reputation for questioning the establishment – the government, the religious majority, caste and patriarchy – through his films at a time when it has become dangerous to do so. Mulk , Article 15 , Thappad and Anek have each raised issues that commercial Hindi cinema usually does not. Anek was a misfire, but the rest were successful in generating important debates even among those who were not fond of them. Bheed lies somewhere in between. Cinematically, it shines only sporadically, but as a mark of defiance against a repressive regime, it is remarkable.

Rating: 2.75 (out of 5 stars)  

This review was first published in March 2023 when Bheed was in theatres. The film is now streaming on Netflix.  

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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In this riveting historical drama, 10 political activists (including Nelson Mandela and his inner circle of Black and Jewish supporters) face a possible death sentence for conspiracy to commit sabotage after they are arrested by the apartheid South African government during a raid in the town of Rivonia during the summer of 1963. Bram Fischer (exceptionally played by Peter Paul Muller), a sympathetic lawyer, risks his career and freedom to defend these men, attempting to hide the fact that he, too, frequently convened on the farm where they were arrested. With An Act of Defiance, Dutch filmmaker Jean van de Velde (The Silent Army) captures a d...

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Review: In ‘Femme,’ a secret act of vengeance comes disguised as erotic flirtation

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The most revelatory aspect of the art of drag is how it lays bare the centrality of performance in our everyday lives. That’s most obvious when it comes to thinking about gender. Wigs, heels and makeup go a long way toward revealing femininity to be a kind of armature deployed as intentionally on the streets as it is on a stage. In “Femme,” Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s debut feature, that kernel of truth becomes the anchor for a deliciously vicious London-set revenge thriller.

When Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) steps into the spotlight at a bar as his alter ego, Aphrodite, you can see he’s in his element. With voguing dancers flanking her, Aphrodite is aptly named. She is a goddess of the night. If you saw her lit only by moonlight, you’d be forgiven for being so taken with her grace. But such magic tends to disappear under the humbling fluorescents of a corner store, particularly unkind to drag makeup.

“Is that a bloke?” Jules overhears a friend ask Preston ( George MacKay of “1917”), as Aphrodite stands in line waiting to get a pack of cigarettes. Quietly, in a tight close-up, you see the queen trying to figure out how best to react to Preston’s posturing homophobia. Should she shrink herself into nothing or try to shine as brightly as she’d done on stage?

She opts for the latter. “How can you call me a fag in front of all your friends when I caught you checking me out earlier?” she says. All too quickly the scene devolves into a violent blur. Stripped, kicked and recorded on Preston’s phone throughout the ordeal, Jules is left with nothing. No wig. No dress. No comebacks. No dignity.

Imagine his luck, then, when one day at a bathhouse, Jules spots his assailant (all abs, tats and attitude). In a split second, whatever self-pity had taken a hold of him following the attack is gone. He pursues Preston (who, it seems, doesn’t recognize his victim), hops in his car and kicks off the erotic, tense tête à tête that structures this slick, stylish queer neo-noir.

Scouring the web for sex videos of outed masc “straight” boys, Jules begins concocting a plan. If he can get Preston on camera, maybe he can finally find closure, find a way to make good on the taunting line that first egged this loutish guy into senseless violence. Pulsing with Adam Janota Bzowski’s drone-like synth score, lit by James Rhodes’ neon-tinged cinematography and cut with flair by Selina Macarthur, that scene is but one moment when “Femme” firmly establishes itself as a bold self-assured debut.

Already a keen performer, Jules quickly becomes everything a closeted guy would want. Using his coyness as his most versatile seductive power, Jules (and, in turn, Stewart-Jarrett) nails the role of homme fatale the film requires. That includes dressing “normal” for his dinner “dates” with Preston and playing into the fantasies he knows excite him.

These late night encounters begin with a wild kind of violent, volatile chemistry. But they soon become more tender. Away from his mates, Preston is much softer than he purports to be when drowning in oversized sweatshirts and hardened grins. And armed with such a protective partner (or maybe so close to recording his revenge sex tape), Jules is finally able to climb out of the depression that had derailed him.

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The question throughout the film, of course, is whether this budding relationship is or could be real. These are two young men who move in worlds that constantly demand that they perform. Both are experts at code-switching and calibrating their moves, their words and even their bodies in any given context. The two begin by offering one another versions of themselves they can’t show others. And as they each wonder whether such vulnerability will be anything but a liability, we’re left to wonder instead whether film and romance alike can end in anything but violence.

To watch Stewart-Jarrett (a glittering steel blade) and MacKay (a hardened fist blooming) play this pair of wounded would-be lovers is to witness two actors walking on a razor’s edge. Their characters’ mercurial motivations are often violently splintering, to the point where you’re never sure what, if anything, is authentic after all.

Within that funhouse mirror of an erotic-thriller premise, “Femme” proves to be a gorgeously mounted meditation on queer and queered performance. As Freeman and Ng’s film arrives at its necessarily cruel, bloody ending — as surprising as it is inevitable — you’re left as torn as its central pair. Bruised, yes. But perhaps all the stronger for it.

'Femme'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes Playing: Now in limited release

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, a poet of an actor: louis gossett, jr. (1936-2024).

In processing the news that we have lost Louis Gossett, Jr. it is striking that the part that won him the Academy Award in 1983 is not the only role of his that comes to mind. With a whopping 200 credits to his name and a career that spans 70 years, it is impossible to reduce him to one iconic part. And that says as much about the roles offered to him in his time as it does the care that he took in picking them. 

Gossett, who died today at age 87, leaves behind a body of work that any actor would envy. As always, so much of what made him was the chance of timing. Born in Brooklyn, Coney Island to be exact, he began acting at 17 thanks to the encouragement of a teacher. He made his Broadway debut before he finished high school. Gossett said in many interviews that the blacklist had forced many brilliant minds out of academia to stations they might not have otherwise found themselves. He believed he benefited from this misfortune, and gained mentorship from people he might never have met in more enlightened times. 

Gossett found his way to Lee Strasberg ’s Actor’s Studio, where he described himself in interviews as “the kid in the back of the room.” In the front of the room there was Marilyn Monroe (she took a liking to the young Gossett and took him under her wing), Julie Harris , Lee Grant , and Sidney Poitier . Remarkable to consider how Gossett and Poitier’s paths crossed so early given that his career was destined to follow the trail blazed by Poitier. The times did not permit Gossett to aim for the leading man roles that Poitier engaged, but Gossett always seemed at peace with juicy supporting parts. Gossett would become a movie star, but at his core, he was always a New York stage actor. 

His breakthrough came in 1959 when he originated the role of George Murchison, the smug, pedantic, self-hating suitor to Beneatha Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun  alongside Poitier, Ruby Dee , Ivan Dixon , John Fiedler , Diana Sands , and Glynn Turman . He then began working in television and film doing the usual parts you’d expect for a young Black man in that era. 

Gossett began the next decade with one of his most outstanding performances in Hal Ashby ’s 1970 directorial debut " The Landlord ," adapted by the late Bill Gunn (whom Gossett had replaced on Broadway when he was a teenager in the cast of Take a Giant Step ) and produced by Norman Jewison . It was an auspicious cast for Gossett, occasioning a reunion with his Actor’s Studios classmate Lee Grant and his Raisin in the Sun  castmate Diana Sands. 

A biting racial satire that shames most contemporary attempts to similarly expose the metastatic madness of American racism, Gossett has the pivotal role of Copee Johnson, a young Black nationalist who is initially presented as a figure of menace from the nightmares of the white middle class. But the more we get to know Copee, the revolutionary stance falls away and we see the man’s vulnerability and fragility underneath. Gossett’s craft as a performer and grace as a human being was essential for the film’s sleight of hand. Copee is himself a performer, at one point even donning a headdress and bow and arrow, becoming a movie Indian as both an act of solidarity and an acknowledgment of the daily defiance his choice to merely exist represented to the white world. Copee breaks when he learns that the titular character, who represents the system trying to smother him, has cuckolded him in a cruel echo of the past. At a time when Black audiences were understandably hungry for larger-than-life folk heroes who could put The Man in his place, Gossett showed us the human cost of shouldering so much painful history and the toll it takes on one’s mental health. In that way, Copee was both of his time and way ahead of it. 

He explored that cruel past in the landmark 1977 television miniseries "Roots". Gossett won a Primetime Emmy for the role of Fiddler. It wasn’t an easy part to play. Fiddler, an enslaved person, is tasked with helping to break the younger Kunta Kinte, played by LeVar Burton , and make a proud young Mandinka into an American slave. Gossett had to use his gifts to find the humanity in a character charged with being a tool of an unspeakable process of dehumanization. 

There’s a certain poetry in Gossett’s major roles. He played the walking embodiment of assimilation in Hansberry’s play, then a man crushed by the mental and spiritual pressures of resistance for Hal Ashby. Fiddler in some ways was the first of the mentor figures that Gossett would spend the rest of his career playing, notably U.S. Army Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in Taylor Hackford ’s 1982 hit " An Officer and a Gentleman ". The part was not written for a Black man, but Taylor Hackford saw the potential in letting Gossett play this character who is tasked with brutally conditioning wild young men into disciplined soldiers. It won Gossett the Academy Award, making him the first Black actor to win Best Supporting Actor, and the second Black male actor to ever win an Academy Award, trailing, of all people, Sidney Poitier.

An Oscar usually leads to bigger parts and bigger opportunities. Alas, the times didn’t offer Louis Gossett, Jr. much in the way of parts equal to his vast talent. But he kept working, turning in memorable roles as an alien in Wolfgang Petersen ’s " Enemy Mine ," a sci-fi riff on " The Defiant Ones " alongside Dennis Quaid  with a fascinating gender twist; and in the four "Iron Eagle" films (the first film in the series came out months before " Top Gun " even though we will always think of them as knockoffs) as a Vietnam vet pilot who has to mentor the son of a fellow pilot.

Gossett was a consummate professional, always delivering excellence whether it was one day on a television movie, a thin part in a faith-based project, or voice work for a video game. In an era when bad behavior was tolerated, he was known for his kindness and his craftsmanship. His final act gave him a critical part in Damon Lindelof ’s HBO series " Watchmen ," and his last part in a major studio release as Old Mister in last year’s "The Color Purple". 

Timing is everything, and Gossett was forged in the times he was born in, as we all are. Of all the lessons his life has to offer young artists, Gossett stands tall for his commitments to craft, to his humanity, and to bring both of those to bear on parts that were sometimes dangerously close to cliche. His gifts and his commitment to his craft made everything he did into something so much more.

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We Were the Lucky Ones review: A heartening story of Holocaust survival

Joey King and Logan Lerman star in Hulu's limited series based on the best-selling historical novel.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

It’s always daunting to press play on a TV show, movie, or documentary about the Holocaust. As necessary and important as these stories are, they’re also agonizing. And Hulu ’s new limited series We Were the Lucky Ones — about a Polish family forced to scatter across multiple continents during World War II — is a tough watch. But those who brave this moving limited series, based on Georgia Hunter’s historical novel, will also find it to be edifying, educational, and ultimately rewarding.

The eight-episode drama introduces us to Halina Kurc ( Joey King ), a young woman living with her family in Radom, Poland, in 1938. It’s Passover, and Halina’s parents, Sol (Lior Ashkenazi) and Nechuma ( Robin Weigert ), are giddily awaiting the return of their son Addy ( Logan Lerman ), a musician who lives in Paris. The family is thriving: Sol and Nechuma own a successful fabric store; their sons Genek (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and Jakob (Amit Rhav) are training to be lawyers; Addy’s latest composition is a radio hit; and their daughter Mila (Hadas Yaron) is expecting her first child with her doctor husband, Selim (Michael Aloni). Still, fears about Hitler’s growing ambitions and rising antisemitism across Europe have begun to infiltrate the periphery of their cheerful existence. “It’ll pass,” Genek assures Addy. “Radom is not Germany.”

Vlad Cioplea/Hulu

His optimism, as we know now, was misguided. The premiere, written by showrunner Erica Lipez ( The Morning Show , Bates Motel ), carefully cultivates a feeling of creeping dread — a Jewish man with a black eye smoking a cigarette outside a Radom café; a man walking the streets of Paris in a government-issued gas mask — as the dangers facing the continent become harder to ignore. Before the hour is over, the Germans have invaded Poland, launching the Kurc family into a yea rs-long nightmare.

Inspired by the true story of Hunter’s ancestors, We Were the Lucky Ones ’ sprawling narrative explores how the Nazis’ reign of terror reached far beyond the borders of the death camps — and why survival offered no escape from the horrors. Sol, Nechuma, Mila, and her daughter (Artemisia Pagliano) are pushed out of their home and forced into factory work; Halina and Bella (Eva Feiler), Jakob’s girlfriend, make a dangerous trek to Soviet-occupied Lvov to find him; Genek and his wife, Herta (Moran Rosenblatt), are sent to a brutal, Russian-controlled work camp; Addy attempts to flee to Brazil but winds up trapped in Nazi-sympathizing Dakar.

Though their circumstances are extremely varied, every member of the Kurc family is surrounded by the threat of death: Pogroms, mass shootings, starvation, back-breaking labor, the flagrant cruelty of SS soldiers, etc. But Lucky Ones also emphasizes the invisible torture that’s intrinsic to the daily act of survival. “You need to laugh more when Germans tell jokes,” Halina scolds Mila, after they decide to conceal their identity. “No Jewish eyes! If we look as sad as we feel, we may as well just announce ourselves.” Even as their torment worsens every passing year, the Kurc family defies the Nazis’ evil by refusing to succumb to it. “Faith is a choice,” says Herta. “It’s an act of will.” That theme, which recurs through countless other Holocaust survival stories, is what makes the tragedy of Lucky Ones bearable.

As the feisty and quick-witted Halina, King is the emotional engine of the series. Attacking her character’s ordeal with passionate defiance, the actress ensures that the Kurc family’s intense yearning for a reunion underscores her every scene. (Both she and Ashkenazi, as Halina’s steadfast father, Sol, even manage to get a few laughs, which is no small feat in a Holocaust drama.) And Lerman, an actor whose boyish mien can veer suave or heartbreakingly fragile, melds easily with the charismatic Addy.

For Jewish survivors, the struggles of World War II didn’t end on VE Day. The excruciating wait for updates on family members from the Red Cross, the jarring shift back to freedom after years of oppression, the return to cities that no longer feel like home — We Were the Lucky Ones touches too briefly on these rich themes in its 73-minute finale. But it also gifts viewers with much-needed moments of ugly-cry uplift — and a reminder that there are some stories we should never stop telling. Grade: B+

We Were the Lucky Ones premieres Thursday, March 28, on Hulu.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spermworld’ on FX, a Profoundly Probing Documentary About Internet Sperm Donors

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Stream it or skip it: ‘jerrod carmichael reality show’ on max, where the comedian wants to reveal all of himself on camera, steve martin recalls his father criticizing his performance in ‘the jerk’: “he’s no charlie chaplin”, stream it or skip it: ‘the truth vs. alex jones’ on max, a vital documentary about the takedown of a mighty fraud.

Spermworld (now streaming on FX and Hulu ) is one of those wild and rare documentaries about a subculture you likely aren’t aware exists, although you probably aren’t surprised that it actually does: a community of sperm donors and recipients who meet in Facebook groups, and essentially engage in DNA exchanges without the oversight of doctors or any other medical system. The film is directed by one of the best young documentary filmmakers to emerge in recent years, Lance Oppenheim, who seems to have embedded himself into the lives of three men as they sell or donate their semen to women who yearn to be mothers. And as Oppenheim made the best documentary of 2020, Some Kind of Heaven , he may have just made the best one of 2024 too. 

SPERMWORLD : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open in a Santa Cruz motel room, where one of the most awkward one-night stands in the history of sex is about to happen. The man explains his technique and the physics of the transaction, and the woman agrees to it – and let’s be clear here, this is absolutely transactional. They’ll attempt to conceive in, as they say, the old-fashioned way. Birds and bees. This is how it works sometimes. We’ll move on from this uncomfortable scene and settle into three other narratives in which the preferred method is ever so slightly less weird: A man alone in a room with some pornography and a cup, and when he’s done, he’ll deliver the specimen and a syringe to the woman. Biology!

These people meet in Facebook groups where some of the men are generous types who want to support LGBTQ+ couples or other altruistic ideals. Some are in it for the money, but it’s still significantly cheaper than a sperm bank (and doesn’t involve awful, awful insurance companies), albeit without the oversight and regulation and other things that might alleviate risk. I know – you have questions: Do creeps get into these forums? Of course they do. It seems as if the users are pretty good at policing things, though. And what about potential donors who pretend to be kind and noble, but are just in it for some form of sexual conquest? Well, that’s a gray area. Spermworld only profiles down-to-their-bones good people, possibly because the skeevy ones would never participate.

Let’s meet our first donor, Tyree Kelly. He greets a lesbian couple in a hotel room, and they have a pleasant, if slightly awkward exchange in which he gets to know them a little bit as human beings before he hands over the goods. A funny wrinkle: The couple also meets Tyree’s fiance, Atasha Pena Clay, who shares that she, too, is trying to get pregnant, and she has to fit herself into his busy insemination schedule. It’s funny, maybe. Tyree’s motive is altruistic – he donates blood and plasma regularly, and often doesn’t charge any money for his sperm, all part of his attempt to put some good into the world after he spent some time in prison (for reasons that remain vague). Atasha goes with him on some of his donation runs; they park in the empty lot of an abandoned building and she queues up a stimulating video on her phone while he reclines his car seat all the way back, and thankfully, this is when the camera cuts away. If Tyree and Atasha’s relationship seems like a pretty complicated dynamic, well, it gets even more fraught as the film goes on. They face hardship and endure some large portions of cosmic irony, but there’s so much love between them, we can’t help but believe that they’ll endure. 

Next is Steve Walker, a 65-year-old divorcee who’s relatively new to the sperm donation community; he has three successful pregnancies in six months, and remains in contact with the familes. He connects with Rachel Stanley, a single woman who has endured a lung transplant and cystic fibrosis diagnosis, and is now doing an end-around of her doctors, who think a pregnancy is too risky. Steve is incredibly polite and personable, with an endearing salty streak, and he’s nothing but respectful when inviting the softspoken and sensitive Rachel into his home. He makes her dinner, they sit by his pool, he hosts a movie night (of all things, they watch Mulholland Dr. !). They’re not successful in getting Rachel pregnant after several attempts, but they might have an odd sort of friendship developing here; from the look of things, both seem to suffer from acute loneliness. Rachel rightly senses that Steve is developing romantic feelings for her, and the camera keeps rolling as they sit down for what might be a terribly awkward conversation.

Finally, we have Ari Nagel, who’s in his 40s and introduces himself as the father of 123 children. But he says he really needs to quit being a donor: “I’m already too old to be jerking off in public restrooms,” he says. His friends and family wonder if this is some type of unusual addiction, but that might be the least unusual thing about this guy. He’s so open about his – what is it, work? Hobby? Calling? – that we see him teaching a college statistics class a lesson in probability, using himself and his paternity as an example. He has no permanent home, because he spends all his time traveling, visiting his children, the families happily letting him crash on their couches. Ari visits his parents, and his aging, ailing mother just. Doesn’t. Get it. Their relationship is loving, but complicated. He throws a party for some of his kids, with bouncy houses and all the fun stuff, but he has to duck out to, well, jerk off in a public restroom. Twice. He double-booked himself. Miscommunication. Too bad for donor no. 2’s yield, but it’s better than nothing, I guess.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Spermworld might be further beyond the pale than anything Errol Morris or Werner Herzog ever directed. (It also might be more painfully humane.) Think Fast, Cheap and Out of Control or Vernon, Florida from the former, and short films such as How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck or The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner from the latter.

Performance Worth Watching: You’ll walk away from the film a huge fan of Atasha, who comes off as an astoundingly supportive, patient and loving partner for Tyree (who’s also a sweetheart of a man). I hope she gets everything she wants, needs and deserves. 

Memorable Dialogue: Sometimes, Oppenheim gives us the lay of the land of these Facebook groups by sharing posts and conversations from them: “Just finished insemination no. 1. Best donor ever!” reads one post that seems pretty insane in any context but this one. Another commenter sums up the entire endeavor succinctly: “I don’t know about normal. This whole business is a bit abnormal.” 

Sex and Skin: None, although there are a few moments where Oppenheim comes right up to the brink of something before cutting away.

Our Take: The word of the day is awkward – and once you get past that, it’ll sink in how odd and moving Spermworld can be, and you’ll reflect on Oppenheim’s ability to capture moments of startling intimacy. So startling and intimate, you’re kind of surprised his subjects agreed to be filmed. Perhaps they realize that their vulnerability is a boon for this fascinating exploration of Very Big Ideas: Biology, psychology, the perpetuation of life, selflessness and selfishness, the need for human beings to connect on a profound level. It also serves as a reminder that no emotion is simple, no matter how much we insist they are, or want them to be – and few are more complex than those derived from the interactions of gray-market sperm donors and recipients, especially those profiled in this film.

Oppenheim employs a visual sense you don’t see in documentaries stocked with talking heads and archival footage (which is nearly all of them, it seems). He and cinematographer David Bolin stray from strict observation in an attempt to capture or create contemplative moods; their aesthetic frequently employs natural lighting and artfully staged shots, and even when they stray from the pointlessly strict conventions of cinema verite – which is quite often – they remain strict proponents of truth. You might even say that truth is ecstatic . 

The director essentially embeds himself in his subjects’ lives, and the footage he gets illustrates the trust he earned. In Steve, we see a man who may need a relationship that transcends simple friendship, stops short of marriage and is more meaningful than casual sex. In Rachel, we see a crushing inner conflict between her needs and desires, and harsh reality; she and Steve share a surprisingly matter-of-fact conversation about mortality that’s quietly heartbreaking. In Ari, we see a wildly complex man who’ll inspire divisive reactions, because his definition of “fatherhood” is so far outside the norm. In Tyree and Atasha, we see people with great big hearts full of love for themselves and others, and they’re just trying to get by, and build a family, and achieve dreams that may never come to fruition. It’s funny how deeply Spermworld sinks in, several hours after the credits roll, and weird how the deep strangeness of the borderline surreal interactions in this community drop away so quickly as Oppenheim pushes past all apprehensions and judgements to find such potently human stories. 

Our Call: Must see. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Music Review: Beyoncé’s epic ‘Act ll: Cowboy Carter’ defies categorization, redefines American style

The Associated Press

March 29, 2024, 3:59 PM

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Nothin’ really ends / For things to stay the same they have to change again,” Beyoncé sings on “Act ll: Cowboy Carter,” the opening lines of the opening track, “Ameriican Requiem.”

“Them big ideas, yeah, are buried here / Amen.”

In some ways, it is a mission statement for the epic 78-minute, 27-track release — or at the very least, functions like a film’s title card to introduce yet another blockbuster album.

In the days leading up to “Cowboy Carter,” the superstar said this “ain’t a Country album” but “a ‘Beyoncé’ album” — positioning herself in opposition to country music’s rigid power structures and emphasizing her ability to work with the style with her latest genre-defying opus.

A capital-C country album it is not — and of course it isn’t. Beyoncé is an eclecticist, known for her elastic vocal performances: in a moment, choosing to belt close to godliness and, in another, moving with marked ease into a fractured run, inheriting histories through the vowels she stresses, the handclaps she introduces and the genres she utilizes. (That’s evident in the instruments as well, which range from washboard, pedal steel, banjo, mandolin, Vibraslap, bass ukulele and mandolin, to name a few.)

If the album, five years in the making, was inspired by the racist backlash she faced after performing at the 2016 CMAs with The Chicks, as many fans have theorized, she’s eclipsed it and then some. Tell Beyoncé she isn’t welcomed in your space; she’ll carve out a bigger one.

“Ameriican Requiem” bleeds into a reimagination of a Beatles ’ classic, “Blackbiird.” It was originally written by Paul McCartney about desegregation in American schools with particular emphasis on the Little Rock Nine, the first group of Black students to desegregate an Arkansas high school in 1957. In Beyoncé’s rendition, harmonies are stacked. She’s joined by Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy — some of the most exciting voices in contemporary country — who are also Black women.

They aren’t the only next generation highlighted on “Cowboy Carter”: Willie Jones’ rich Louisiana tone turns “Just for Fun,” into trail-riding gospel country. Shaboozey’s country-rap marks a pivot in the album’s trajectory on “Spaghettii,” setting the listener up for the singular listening experience of the Patsy Cline-channeling “Sweet Honey Buckiin’,” with its Jersey club beats.

Country veterans , too, appear: Willie Nelson is a rough-around-the-edges radio DJ on the fictional station KNTRY — the resulting effect is an alternative America where terrestrial country radio does not overwhelmingly prefer playing white performers ; snippets of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Down by the River Side,” Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” and Roy Hamilton’s 1957 “Don’t Let Go” bled into Nelson’s smoky voice.

The ’50s cuts are an inspired choice; Beyoncé has chosen to reference the decade in which format-based radio emerged and, as a result, country music’s racial lines were all but codified. The effects are still felt. One frequently referenced study, conducted by University of Ottawa professor Jada Watson, examined over 11,000 songs played on country radio from 2002 to 2020 and found that artists of color made up only 3% of all airplay, two-thirds of which were men. In even her interludes, Beyoncé has taken her listeners to school.

“Jolene” is a reimagined take on the 1973 Dolly Parton original; it’s preceded by “Dolly P,” a spoken-word interlude from Parton. “Remember that hussy with the good hair you sang about?” she says, referencing “Becky with the good hair” from “Sorry” off 2016’s “Lemonade.” “Reminded me of someone I knew back when, except she has flaming locks of auburn hair. Bless her heart! Just a hair of a different color, but it hurts just the same.”

Beyoncé’s version, of course, is very Beyoncé — there’s no shrinking and begging for this woman to step off; it’s a warning.

Perhaps Beyoncé’s clearest predecessor on this album is Linda Martell , the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry. Martell’s 1970 landmark record “Color Me Country” should be considered country canon; she offered Black women rare visibility in a genre stereotypically associated with whiteness.

She also appears twice on “Cowboy Carter,” first providing clarity on the complicated origins of country in “Spaghettii.”

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” she says, laughing. “In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

Shared histories and families are abundant on Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter”: “Protector” begins with Beyoncé’s daughter Rumi Carter asking for “the lullaby, please,” leading into a tear-jerker of an acoustic ballad centering motherhood.

If listeners position “Act ll: Cowboy Carter” next to “Act l: Renaissance,” they might view the record as a continued dialogue in the Beyoncé mythos: “Lemonade” established Beyoncé’s dedication to Black empowerment. “Renaissance” reclaimed House music for its Black progenitors in a sprawling release that placed techno, Chicago and Detroit house, New Orleans bounce, Afrobeats, queer dance culture and beyond on the same dance floor — and highlighted the frequent invisibility of Black performance in music history books. “Cowboy Carter” does something similar with country music — and, in true Beyoncé fashion, extends well beyond it, as vessel, captain and crew on this journey.

“Bodyguard” borders on soft rock; “Ya Ya” interpolates Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’” and The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations”; “Riiverdance” and “II Hands II Heaven” bring back the electronica of “Renaissance.” “ll Most Wanted” features the raspy-rich Miley Cyrus, and interpolates Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” “Levii’s Jeans” modernizes the timeless combination of R&B and country ballads, amplified by a surprising collaborator in a crooning Post Malone — lest we forget he also hails from Texas.

“Oh Louisiana” is helium-injected blues and funk; the classic guitars on “Daughter” lead into Beyoncé singing the famous Italian aria “Caro Mio Ben” in the original language. If you’ve been waiting for her opera moment, here it is.

When she’s back to English in the refrain, she declares, “If you cross me, I’m just like my father / I am colder than Titanic water,” reminiscent of outlaw country’s murder ballads and a successor to Bey’s first ever country song, “Daddy Lessons” from “Lemonade.”

Effortlessly — and momentously — “Cowboy Carter” weaves canonized classics into the same breath as Beyoncé’s country music evolutions and Black music history preservations. If the Beatles and the Beach Boys are unimpeachable, so is Martell, so is Beyoncé, and Adell, and so on.

The magic here, of course, is Beyoncé’s mastery of art and message. And at the center of everything is her larger-than-life performance — serious and jubilant, like when she plays her nails as percussion, an ode to Parton doing the same on “9 to 5.” (That’s on “Riiverdance,” a club song that also references country’s Celtic folk origins.)

On “Cowboy Carter,” historical course-correcting and evolution go down with honey. Lessons are learned on the dance floor, on the radio, at the imagined honky-tonk, in headphones.

It’s a massive album that will require close examination for full enjoyment — but Beyoncé fans have long learned to be great students.

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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Julianna margulies and peter gallagher broadway bound in new play by ‘you’ve got mail’ co-screenwriter delia ephron, ‘the who’s tommy’ broadway review: still a sensation.

By Greg Evans

NY & Broadway Editor

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Certainly one definition of great music might include an ability to meet the present – and the future – head-on and come out unbruised, even triumphant. By that standard and many more, The Who’s Tommy , opening tonight on Broadway , is thrilling proof that the premiere concept album of 1969 is great music indeed.

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With a superb cast headed by Broadway newcomer Ali Louis Bourzgui as Tommy, the “deaf, dumb and blind kid” – most of whatever language less-than-acceptable by today’s standards has been retained – and Alison Luff as his mom Mrs. Walker, Tommy feels less like a stick-to-what-works revival than a top-to-bottom reimagining. Nearly all of it works beautifully.

Neither the music – from “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Sensation” and “Pinball Wizard” to “Acid Queen,” “Christmas” and “Tommy, Can You Hear Me?” – nor the plot has changed much in the last 55 years since the former first grabbed FM radio listeners and the latter baffled stoned hippies hoping to make sense of it (the album didn’t come with instructions).

So, the plot: In a brief preamble set in 1941, British officer Captain Walker (Adam Jacobs) meets and marries the soon-to-be Mrs. Walker (Luff). He returns to battle – chillingly depicted with archival projections and goose-stepping silhouettes of marching Nazis – where he’s captured and sent to a camp while she gives birth to their son Tommy. Presuming her husband dead, Mrs. Walker takes up with a new man (Nathan Lucrezio), only to be shocked when the Captain returns home. A fight leaves the lover dead, and Tommy, who saw it all, traumatized.

The first act of the musical portrays Tommy at ages 4 and 10 – as well as, less frequently, Bourzgui’s adult Tommy, interacting with them – through various, well, adventures would be a polite way to put it. He’s prayed over (“Christmas”), medically examined (“Sparks”), taken to various drugs & sex dens of iniquity (“Eyesight to the Blind” and “Acid Queen”), tormented by a sadistic cousin (“Cousin Kevin”) and, in “Fiddle About,” left alone with his sexually abusive Uncle Ernie (John Ambrosino) – no laughing matter in this telling, unlike Ken Russell’s grotesque 1975 film version.

It’s Cousin Kevin – terrifically played by Bobby Conte – who inadvertently spurs Tommy’s breakthrough, and leads the musical to its show-stopping Act I finale: After some at-home cruelty, he takes his young charge to a local youth community center, where Tommy is mysteriously drawn to a pinball machine. The rest, as they might say, is rock and roll history, as Tommy stuns the hall full of teens with an inexplicable mastery of the electric machine.

Much, of course, is expected of “Pinball Wizard,” one of the most loved songs in The Who catalogue, and in Lorin Latarro’s exuberant, best-of-show choreography, all expectations are met. The teens all but explode in an feverish dance of elation and slack-jawed wonderment.

The second half of the show follows Tommy’s ascendance from local hero to national celebrity – one of Townshend’s better conceits was always the substitution of pinball wizardry for rock stardom – including his emotional breakthrough (“Smash The Mirror,” “I’m Free”) when his sight, hearing and speech returns. The “Miracle Cure” sends him to the heights of stardom (“Sensation”) and to its depths (“Sally Simpson”).

At this point in the show, the musical veers from both the album and the film by eliminating the song “Tommy’s Holiday Camp,” in which loathsome old Uncle Ernie (played for laughs in the film by The Who’s Keith Moon) is back in Tommy’s good graces and running a Tommy-themed retreat for fans. No such blanket forgiveness here: When last we see the alcoholic, dejected pedophile, he remains standing apart from the rest of the Walker family. Even Cousin Kevin has found his way back to the fold, putting his nasty skills to use (unbeknownst to Tommy) as the family’s authoritarian security guard, complete with a longcoat that lands somewhere between Communist China and 1984 .

The Acid Queen (Christina Sajous), like Cousin Kevin, is given a bit of, if not exoneration, then some understanding: The unrepentant sex worker-drug pusher of Tina Turner’s film portrayal, tasked with effecting some sort of cure by corrupting the child Tommy, is shown here to be a victim herself, with a pimp or two supplying the heroin that keeps her in line.

In any case, “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” isn’t missed, with the much lovelier “Welcome” serving the same function of conveying Tommy’s attempt to connect with his followers while rejecting their messianic expectations. It doesn’t go well, as evidenced by the greatest anthem of mob uprising and defiance in rock (here performed by the the production’s excellent chorus, with the word “break” subbing for “rape,” an odious sentiment even in ’69).

From there, it’s all over but the barnburner finale, a full-cast reprise of “See Me, Feel Me”/”Listening To You” that had the audience at the reviewed performance on its feet and roaring, a reception that had been teased out not only by an faultless cast and rousing score (the orchestra and orchestrations fully meet the occasion) but by two-plus hours of visual magic. Set designer David Korins ( Hamilton ) has devised a deceptively minimalist foundation, with large open spaces, scrims and furnishings that can seem mere suggestion – the pinball machine is little more than a frame. Splashing this cavernous canvas with extraordinary displays of light (courtesy of designer Amanda Zieve) and Peter Nigrini’s state-of-the-art projections, the world of Tommy is less the pinball machine buzzers and bells of yore than a 3-D mash-up of Tron -style laser show and you-are-there Virtual Reality. There’s even some Ivo van Hove-ish mixed media tossed in for good measure.

Matching Nigrini’s time-jumping projections from Blitz to V.R. every step of the way are Sarafina Bush’s wildly inventive costumes, capturing each era’s essence without falling victim to that musical theater bogeyman of Halloween costume replication. Post-war drab gives way to Teddy Boy flash, which segues to leather-era early Beatles and, inevitably, the dystopian future-retro-fascist grays that Orwell himself might have imagined. At every epoch, Bush sends in black sleek-helmeted soldier-droog-robot toadies to make any amount of mischief.

Keeping everything jumping, very literally, is Latarro’s exhilarating choreography, never better than in the ’50s-’60s-era mad celebrations of teenage abandon, whether the West Side Story ruffianism of “Tommy, Can You Hear Me” or that wonderful arcade dance of “Pinball Wizard.” Watch for the details: At one point as the young Tommy is dazzling the crowd with his Bally Table wizardry, the enthusiastic lads and lasses lift the boy’s feet so high that the kid’s body is at a 2 o’clock angle, tethered only to the machine by his crazy flipper fingers. Can this be anything other than an homage to the iconic photo of a young Elton John kicking his legs behind him while bashing his piano keys, Townshend’s pinball wizard-rock star metaphor made clear in one joyous moment of theater?

Of course, none of this razzle-dazzle would work without a cast to justify it, and McAnuff, an exemplary director who has really never been better, has assembled a very worthy group. Bourzgui, his wild mop of curly black hair crowning a handsome face dominated by big, dark Bette Davis eyes that remain wide and vacant until they’re not, is one of this season’s true finds. With eccentric, angular movements that stop just short of robotic, Bourzgui careens from the stilted expressions of a man trapped in his body to the fluid, soulful gestures of his adult self guiding his lost-to-themselves younger iterations. The rock-star moves that eventually arrive seem entirely inevitable, his voice throughout finding the sweet spot between Roger Daltrey howl and the musical theater control.

No weak links in the rest of the cast either. Conte, so good in Broadway’s most recent Company , is no less a bright spot here, finding both the humor and the menace in the pin-sticking Cousin Kevin, “the school bully, the classroom cheat, the nastiest playfriend you ever could meet.” Conte is handed perhaps the most underrated song of the score (“Cousin Kevin,” written by The Who’s bassist John Entwistle), and runs with it.

Luff, as Tommy’s long-suffering, occasionally misguided but ever-devoted mom, is a wonder, reaching a show zenith with the Act II raver “Smash The Mirror.” (She’s equally impressive with the quieter husband-wife duet-ballad “I Believe My Own Eyes” with Jacobs, though that number, added by Townshend long after the original rock album, remains the stage musical’s sore thumb.)

Notable among the very large ensemble is Sheldon Henry as the Hawker pimp who introduces the Acid Queen with “Eyesight To The Blind” (a menacing bluesy number heavily indebted, to put it mildly, to the great Sonny Boy Williamson). Sajous, as the Acid Queen, doesn’t have the shriek-of-nature vocal power of the film’s Tina Turner – who does? – but gives the character and the sultry song a wounded depth that feels thoroughly of the moment.

When Townshend wrote the album’s central question – “Can you hear me?” – back in ’69, he might have directed the lyric at his fictional alter-ego Tommy, but perceptive listeners recognized the plea for a larger connection, whether spiritual or communal or familial or even self. All these years later, the question remains at the heart of The Who’s Tommy , and we can answer, with great pleasure, loud and clear.

Title: The Who’s Tommy Venue: Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre Director: Des McAnuff Book: Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff Music and Lyrics: Pete Townshend Choreography: Lorin Latarro Cast: Ali Louis Bourzgui, Alison Luff, Adam Jacobs, John Ambrosino, Bobby Conte, Christina Sajous, with Haley Gustafson, Jeremiah Alsop, Ronnie S. Bowman Jr., Mike Cannon, Tyler James Eisenreich, Sheldon Henry, Afra Hines, Aliah James, David Paul Kidder, Tassy Kirbas, Lily Kren, Quinten Kusheba, Reese Levine, Brett Michael Lockley, Nathan Lucrezio, Alexandra Matteo, Mark Mitrano, Reagan Pender, Cecilia Ann Popp, Daniel Quadrino, Olive Ross-Kline, Jenna Nicole Schoen, Dee Tomasetta, and Andrew Tufano. Running time: 2 hr 10 min (including intermission)

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Kung Fu Panda 4 review – Jack Black and Awkwafina in hurricane of slapstick more miss than hit

The lead pair make a brilliant double act, but the franchise has run out of its signature sweetness and charm

T he cuddly kung fu master is back. Jack Black returns as dumpling-loving panda Po, the unlikeliest of lean, mean fightin’ machines. It’s been eight years since Kung Fu Panda 3, and on the evidence here, the delay can’t be put down to KFP4 being a labour of love, the product of animation studio DreamWorks’ A team pouring in enormous amounts of effort. It’s a hurricane of slapstick (some of it in fact very funny) and age-appropriate energetic fight scenes, but lacks the sweetness and charm of the franchise at its best. It failed the wriggle test on my seven-year-old cinema date, who was squirming in her seat around the hour mark.

The plot is a bit overfussy for its target audience of small kids, though the scriptwriters have been careful to make it work for newbies – no previous Kung Fu Panda experience necessary. It opens with Po being promoted from his role as Dragon Warrior to spiritual leader of the valley, taking over from his mentor Shifu (Dustin Hoffman – no expense has been spared on the vocal cast). But before he can appoint his successor, Po apprehends Zhen (Awkwafina), a streetwise thieving fox. The two of them make a brilliant double act: Black is adorable, Awkwafina terrific as the cynical wisecracker.

Zhen warns Po about a dangerous new villain, the sorceress Chameleon (Viola Davis), who turns out to be pretty unmemorable as far as the franchise’s baddies go (not a patch on Ian McShane or Gary Oldman in the earlier movies). The two biggest giggles in the cinema came from the grownups: first, in a hilarious scene involving bulls in a china shop; then some wry chuckling when Po tries to meditate – his thoughts quickly straying to his tummy: “Inner peace … inner peace … dinner please … dinner with peas.” But the seven-year-old shrugged and said, half heartedly: “The panda is … fun.”

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Music Review: Beyoncé's epic 'Act ll: Cowboy Carter' defies categorization, redefines American style

L OS ANGELES (AP) — “Nothin’ really ends / For things to stay the same they have to change again,” Beyoncé sings on “Act ll: Cowboy Carter,” the opening lines of the opening track, “Ameriican Requiem.”

“Them big ideas, yeah, are buried here / Amen.”

In some ways, it is a mission statement for the epic 78-minute, 27-track release — or at the very least, functions like a film's title card to introduce yet another blockbuster album.

In the days leading up to “Cowboy Carter,” the superstar said this “ain’t a Country album” but “a ‘Beyoncé’ album” — positioning herself in opposition to country music's rigid power structures and emphasizing her ability to work with the style with her latest genre-defying opus.

A capital-C country album it is not — and of course it isn’t. Beyoncé is an eclecticist, known for her elastic vocal performances: in a moment, choosing to belt close to godliness and, in another, moving with marked ease into a fractured run, inheriting histories through the vowels she stresses, the handclaps she introduces and the genres she utilizes. (That’s evident in the instruments as well, which range from washboard, pedal steel, banjo, mandolin, Vibraslap, bass ukulele and mandolin, to name a few.)

If the album, five years in the making, was inspired by the racist backlash she faced after performing at the 2016 CMAs with The Chicks, as many fans have theorized, she’s eclipsed it and then some. Tell Beyoncé she isn’t welcomed in your space; she’ll carve out a bigger one.

“Ameriican Requiem" bleeds into a reimagination of a Beatles ’ classic, “Blackbiird.” It was originally written by Paul McCartney about desegregation in American schools with particular emphasis on the Little Rock Nine, the first group of Black students to desegregate an Arkansas high school in 1957. In Beyoncé’s rendition, harmonies are stacked. She’s joined by Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy — some of the most exciting voices in contemporary country — who are also Black women.

They aren’t the only next generation highlighted on “Cowboy Carter”: Willie Jones’ rich Louisiana tone turns “Just for Fun,” into trail-riding gospel country. Shaboozey’s country-rap marks a pivot in the album’s trajectory on “Spaghettii," setting the listener up for the singular listening experience of the Patsy Cline-channeling “Sweet Honey Buckiin'," with its Jersey club beats.

Country veterans , too, appear: Willie Nelson is a rough-around-the-edges radio DJ on the fictional station KNTRY — the resulting effect is an alternative America where terrestrial country radio does not overwhelmingly prefer playing white performers ; snippets of Sister Rosetta Tharpe's “Down by the River Side,” Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” and Roy Hamilton’s 1957 “Don’t Let Go” bled into Nelson’s smoky voice.

The ’50s cuts are an inspired choice; Beyoncé has chosen to reference the decade in which format-based radio emerged and, as a result, country music’s racial lines were all but codified. The effects are still felt. One frequently referenced study, conducted by University of Ottawa professor Jada Watson, examined over 11,000 songs played on country radio from 2002 to 2020 and found that artists of color made up only 3% of all airplay, two-thirds of which were men. In even her interludes, Beyoncé has taken her listeners to school.

“Jolene” is a reimagined take on the 1973 Dolly Parton original; it’s preceded by “Dolly P," a spoken-word interlude from Parton. “Remember that hussy with the good hair you sang about?” she says, referencing “Becky with the good hair” from “Sorry” off 2016’s “Lemonade.” “Reminded me of someone I knew back when, except she has flaming locks of auburn hair. Bless her heart! Just a hair of a different color, but it hurts just the same.”

Beyoncé’s version, of course, is very Beyoncé — there’s no shrinking and begging for this woman to step off; it's a warning.

Perhaps Beyoncé’s clearest predecessor on this album is Linda Martell , the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry. Martell’s 1970 landmark record “Color Me Country” should be considered country canon; she offered Black women rare visibility in a genre stereotypically associated with whiteness.

She also appears twice on “Cowboy Carter,” first providing clarity on the complicated origins of country in “Spaghettii."

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” she says, laughing. “In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

Shared histories and families are abundant on Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter”: “Protector” begins with Beyoncé’s daughter Rumi Carter asking for “the lullaby, please,” leading into a tear-jerker of an acoustic ballad centering motherhood.

If listeners position “Act ll: Cowboy Carter” next to “Act l: Renaissance,” they might view the record as a continued dialogue in the Beyoncé mythos: “Lemonade” established Beyoncé’s dedication to Black empowerment. “Renaissance” reclaimed House music for its Black progenitors in a sprawling release that placed techno, Chicago and Detroit house, New Orleans bounce, Afrobeats, queer dance culture and beyond on the same dance floor — and highlighted the frequent invisibility of Black performance in music history books. “Cowboy Carter” does something similar with country music — and, in true Beyoncé fashion, extends well beyond it, as vessel, captain and crew on this journey.

“Bodyguard” borders on soft rock; “Ya Ya” interpolates Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin'” and The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations”; “Riiverdance” and “II Hands II Heaven” bring back the electronica of “Renaissance.” “ll Most Wanted” features the raspy-rich Miley Cyrus, and interpolates Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” “Levii's Jeans” modernizes the timeless combination of R&B and country ballads, amplified by a surprising collaborator in a crooning Post Malone — lest we forget he also hails from Texas.

“Oh Louisiana” is helium-injected blues and funk; the classic guitars on “Daughter” lead into Beyoncé singing the famous Italian aria “Caro Mio Ben” in the original language. If you've been waiting for her opera moment, here it is.

When she’s back to English in the refrain, she declares, “If you cross me, I’m just like my father / I am colder than Titanic water,” reminiscent of outlaw country’s murder ballads and a successor to Bey’s first ever country song, “Daddy Lessons” from “Lemonade.”

Effortlessly — and momentously — “Cowboy Carter” weaves canonized classics into the same breath as Beyoncé's country music evolutions and Black music history preservations. If the Beatles and the Beach Boys are unimpeachable, so is Martell, so is Beyoncé, and Adell, and so on.

The magic here, of course, is Beyoncé’s mastery of art and message. And at the center of everything is her larger-than-life performance — serious and jubilant, like when she plays her nails as percussion, an ode to Parton doing the same on “9 to 5.” (That's on “Riiverdance,” a club song that also references country's Celtic folk origins.)

On “Cowboy Carter,” historical course-correcting and evolution go down with honey. Lessons are learned on the dance floor, on the radio, at the imagined honky-tonk, in headphones.

It’s a massive album that will require close examination for full enjoyment — but Beyoncé fans have long learned to be great students.