Emancipation, at it's heart, is an action film. For all its important subject matter and emotional gravitas, this is an escape movie, set against the back drop of one of America's great evils, the Antebellum South. It is the story of a man's pursuit of freedom from the horrors of slavery, set as an actual chase film. It is literally and figuratively about escape.
And Emancipation is a bold and striking vision with its black-and-white-ish colour palette, artful flourishes in its cinematography, and the kinetic movement of the action film genre. Director Fuqua's aesthetic has always been stylish and adrenaline pumped, often prioritizing this over a narrative substance. Here he incorporates a powerful emotional story, the loosely fictionalized story behind a famous photograph, into his action to give it a strong punch. Along the way his protagonist encounters true horrors while on the run. He uses this rather simple story to hint at something larger, the historical truth about slavery, and confront his audience with it.
The film is perhaps a bit on the two-dimensional side. The characters are often thinly drawn, being little more than archetypes, even the subject of the story, the man from the consequential photo. Fuqua's focus is on the chase and its resolution and less on creating real people. The bad guys are very bad the good guys are very good and this is a morality play so it all "works out" in the end despite what we know to be true about the legacy of slavery. But Fuqua isn't McQueen and isn't making another 12 Year's a Slave, and nor should he. This may not be a profound exploration of the social and economic structures of white supremacy but it is, on top of being an engaging action piece, a brutally honest mirror held up to the face of the United States that we shouldn't look away from.
Emancipation doesn't always maintain its energy. The film feels a little long in places, and it's ending feels just too pat. Emancipation is a film of extremes and perhaps it all becomes a bit too operatic by the end. But still this Peter's journey, this symbolic journey, is very engaging and Fuqua exudes style making this a fascinating watch and a comment on its nation.
Starring: Will Smith, Ben Foster, Charmaine Bingwa, Steven Ogg, Mustafa Shakir, Timothy Hutton
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Writer: William N. Collage
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