Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Micheal Ward, Amarah-Jae St Aubyn, Francis Lovehall, Shaniqua Okwok, Kedar Williams-Stirling, Kadeem Ramsay
Curried meat bubbles furiously in giant pots. A sofa is moved into a
bedroom to make way for a makeshift dancefloor. A primitive system for
switching between two record turntables is rigged up in fetishistic cabling
porn fashion. And then the needle drops and the party begins.
Thus Steve McQueen sets the scene for Lovers Rock, one of five entries in his made for BBC anthology 'Small Axe'. All five
movies tell stories of the West Indian diaspora in London between the 1960s
and '80s, but where the others are focussed on hardship,
Lovers Rock is centred on joy, on food, on dance, on music, on
sex, on shared euphoria, on all the things currently forbidden in the
lockdown age.
The question will be raised as to whether McQueen's five films fall under
TV or cinema. If we're going to be reductive, I think of TV as a medium of
words and ideas, and cinema as one of images and feelings. Using those
parameters, Lovers Rock is categorically a work of cinema,
perhaps the most cinematic British TV movie since Alan Clarke's
Elephant.
McQueen's goal here is to replicate an experience, that of attending what
were known as "Blues Parties", raucous get togethers thrown by the UK's West
Indian community in the years before American pop culture began to distance
Black British youth from the culture of their ancestral islands. The
soundtrack is a mix of reggae - particularly the soulful, romantic variation
from which McQueen's film takes its title - and the disco hits of the era,
the tunes ranging from the sublimely soulful (Janet Kay's 'Silly Games') to
the ridiculously fun (Carl Douglas's 'Kung Fu Fighting'). It's the late
'70s, so the concept of modern DJing as we know it, with flawlessly mixed
sets, hasn't made its way to Britain just yet. The DJ - who also doubles as
a hype man, vocally encouraging the crowd - is by no means a pro,
interrupting the flow in awkward fashion at times (pulling a Chic record off
the turntable halfway through ought to be a jailable offence), but he knows
his crowd.
Lovers Rock is one of those rare movies that understands
DJing, that gets that a DJ is essentially a nerd whose job is to help cool
people get laid. There's an insightful moment in which a troubled young man
gatecrashes the party and begins to dance on his own, consumed by the music.
The DJ and his crew break out in smiles, as for them it's the highlight of
their night. They've found that one person who is more interested in dancing
than fucking. They'll tailor the night around him. He is patient zero, and
the plan is for him to infect the crowd. This is the essence of DJing,
finding that diamond in a crowd of coal, that one person who appreciates
what you're doing, and manipulating them through music to spread their joy
to the rest of the dancefloor, to let the others know that the canoodling
can wait, that for the next few hours there's dancing to be done.
There is much canoodling here too, as at its throbbing heart
Lovers Rock (note the absence of the possessive apostrophe) is
a love story of two people making a connection among a crowd. They would be
Martha (Amarah-Jae St Aubyn), who has sneaked out the window of her
home clad in a hand-sewn gown, and the handsome Franklyn (Micheal Ward). The brilliance of McQueen's filmmaking is that he never tells us Martha
and Franklyn are falling for one another. He allows us to sense it.
Lovers Rock is one of the most sensual movies of recent years.
You can almost smell the mix of hash smoke, sweat and cheap aftershave,
taste the curry pouring over the rim of pots in the kitchen, feel the bodies
grinding close. For most of the movie we're in the middle of the dancefloor,
an invitee intruding on intimacy.
Like many house parties, there's trouble lurking on the fringes, and as
much fun is being had, we're reminded that this was an era lacking
sensitivity, particularly towards women. While some of the men, like
Franklyn, are dashing, others are downright menacing, and more than one
young woman will be in tears by the end of the night. Some younger viewers
may find one particular incident difficult to process, given its throwaway
nature and lack of repercussions, but this is an accurate reflection of how
such things played out not so long ago.
Like Gaspar Noe's
Climax, Lovers Rock is a very modern take on the best type of
musical, one built around dance. McQueen doesn't have the crew of
professional dancers Noe was blessed with, but he does have a cast of
charismatic newcomers that make you feel like you've seen them on screen
several times before. Watching Lovers Rock, you get the sense that like Fast Times at Ridgemont High or
Dazed and Confused, this is one of those movies where every fresh face goes on to stardom to
some degree. As with the young actors portraying them, it's unclear what the
future holds for Martha and Franklyn, but if Lovers Rock is as
good as it gets, it's good enough.
Lovers Rock premieres on BBC One November 22nd and will stream on BBC iPlayer from the same date.
