A quality he powerfully exhibits in Black Panther too, where he keeps the Marvel charm running through the irreverent one-liners and still finds a story embedded deep in the rich soil of Africa.ĪLSO READ: Anushka Sharma’s Pari to Sanjay Dutt’s biopic: 21 movies you can’t afford to miss in 2018Īnd boy, does it depict the Afro heritage in all its glory. This ability to doff his hat to the franchise tradition, and still keep his own voice in the film won the director a bucketful of acclaim and appreciation. His second film was a spin-off from the popular Rocky franchise, where he relocated the ‘iconic sprint’ to the black neighbourhood of Philadelphia amongst wheelies and drifting quad bikes. Coogler made the hard-hitting Fruitvale Station in 2013, where he chronicled the last day in the life of a man who would be fatally shot by the police at a train station. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) made a brave choice by zeroing in on a director, who had only two films behind him. After testing positively with the audience, a standalone film was announced. The hero from Wakanda made his first appearance in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Why did the MCU pick Ryan Coogler, who had only two films behind him? Why? Because he’s the Black Panther… and the world needs saving.
The film comprising an all-black cast, has Chadwick Boseman clawing his way on top of invisible cars, scampering on the ledge of skyscrapers and yanking out wheels of speeding cars. Well too bad, Ryan Coogler’s film is here and no more excuses will be entertained. It wallops the ancient wisdom, that feels the need to cast white men in the roles of Asians, Indians…hell even necessitates changing the ethnicity of an African-American protagonist, to make a film more ‘viable’. It’s a slap on the face of Hollywood’s age-old theory, that films starring the ‘marginalised communities and races can’t make cash at the box office’. No more excuses for whitewashing a film in the name of ‘viability’.īlack Panther is not just a film. This is not a drill anymore, mainstream Hollywood has (phew!) set a precedent for inclusive filmmaking. They would, in all probability, ask me what I was smoking.ĪLSO READ: Black Panther’s purple carpet premiere is a whole lot of YAAAASįor a desi equivalent – imagine a Muslim social film where the protagonist talks about saving the world whilst offering his/her take on a secular India? Or think about the number of times a Hindi film has been led by Dalit characters, while discussing caste. What if I told these men from 1967, who were harassed by their own law enforcement and bullied by their own constitution, that there would come a day when Hollywood would produce, promote and release a superhero film with an all-black cast? A film that ‘allowed’ them to celebrate their African roots, a fictitious country from Africa would provide aid and assistance to the world, and a few black individuals would be shown driving posh cars and pulling off fancy stunts to save the world. This was close to the simmering point of the African-American civil rights movement, and a question repeatedly presented itself as I watched Black Panther. The film takes place right in the midst of the infamous 12th Street riots, when black men were rounded up in jails by (mostly) white police officers… for partying too late.
I was watching Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit only a few days back.
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