"Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn"-- John Keats, Ode to the Nightingale
In
Fast Color, the invisible umbilical cord binds the women's ancestral line. No amount of distance-- both living and dead-- can change the course of that destiny, a destiny that is still an unraveled mystery. The mother, the daughter, and the granddaughter will need each other for different resources, but the most important tool for survival is togetherness.
In a dry, barren dystopia, water is no longer a complimentary luxury, costing as much as an astronomical forty bucks a few gallons, twelve dollars a pint. The rain hasn't touched the earth in years, leaving behind an unloved, unfulfilled world. Enter Ruth. She is a very special woman with some very eccentric abilities-- like causing earthquakes. She constantly rushes place to place, obviously on the run from militant evil. She gets into a stranger's car and immediately finds out he is anything but a white savior.
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| Gugu Mbath-Raw (Belle, Beyond the Lights) puts on a fantastic performance as Ruth, mover and shaker of the earth. |
Ruth manages to escape and finds aide in Sheila, a kind bartender before reaching to a place she had abandoned-- home. The home is a whole other character, nonverbal. On the outside, it looks like a plain, ordinary barn. Inside, the walls overflow with historic pictures, drawings, and paintings. Many objects fill the rustic, charming spaces of Ruth's mother Bo's family inheritance, a living, breathing heirloom seemingly as old as the women's exceptional gifts. The most precious sentiment is the huge book that all the women write in, entailing their magic and illustrating colors-- colors that Ruth cannot see. Thus, migration is apparent-- Ruth's return, the sacredness of Black home/land ownership passed down, and the shared diary from one woman's hand to the next.
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| Bo (Lorraine Touissant) tells Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) about the importance of the house and the family diary. The inherited house served as a protective barrier, a serene solace for many generations. Unfortunately, no place-- no matter the familiarity or history-- can shield their secret forever. |
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| Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is trying to build with her daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney)-- a path to forgiving herself for the past and making it up with a promising future. |
Bo doesn't seem excited by Ruth's return and Lila is reluctant and naturally distrustful to form a relationship. Still, the three manage to set a routine, dividing the food and water, practicing their manipulation skills. Ruth is fascinated by Lila, falling more in love with her daughter. Ruth accidentally breaks Lila's window and suggests that maybe they can place it back together-- although their powers never fix broken things. The glass surprisingly comes together at their joined effort, but then shatters, relaying that mother/daughter have kinks to sort out. Through time and patience, Ruth and Lila could potentially have a strong, resilient bond.
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| Three is the magic number: Bo (Lorraine Touissant), Lila (Saniyya Sidney), and Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). |
The talented trio force of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Touissant, and Saniyya Sidney give such phenomenal performances that cannot be ignored. The juicy script lends them opportunities to convey suspicion and doubt, love and tenderness. By having considerable weight to their parts, these actresses are able to fully render character's individual actions, the causes and affects. Mbatha-Raw's former drug addict Ruth has expressive eyes and spurts of vulnerability, haunted by regret. Touissant's Bo follows her own stern mother's footsteps, but her warm, valiant heart realizes that the past cannot deny future. Sidney's Lila showcase that beneath the iron rebellion streak, she wants true belonging. These women lead in a refreshing and phenomenal way, leaning on each other, learning to trust and sacrifice as do their engaging characters.
The score is melodic and powerful, setting appropriate moods and Nina Simone leads an eclectic soundtrack. Beautifully shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the visual effects are also a dazzling highlight, especially the significant moments of molecules transforming into objects and these objects breaking down into tiny particles-- Bo's cigarettes, Lila's tools, the broken ceramic bowl. In fact, two noteworthy scenes stand out.
Ruth coming into herself, finding something nestled deep within, and it all comes down to Lila. She is Ruth's heart, her ultimate power source. When Ruth finally embraces her gifts, free from seizures and shackles, seemingly joining with the earth in a profoundly internal intimacy, Ruth is as phenomenal as X-Men's Ororo Munro aka Storm.
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| Oscar winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins (Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk) with Fast Color co-writer Jordan Horowitz, Fast Color director/co-writer Julia Hart, and film stars Saniyya Sidney (Lila) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Ruth). |
Bo admits fearing her own strength. Yet she defiantly faces down the men with guns pointed at her and her child and dissolves the threat. This excruciatingly intense scene froths with metaphorical allegory. These people aimed weapons at women, placing their selfish, malignant intentions for "science experiments" far above the validity of human life-- women who are callously the more violated sex. Sasha Avonna Bell comes to mind-- one of the first to file a lawsuit against Flint, Michigan, whose death remains unsolved. Yet it also ushers in the history of Sarah Baartman and other Black women's bodies paraded, exhibited, and dissected for their unique "parts," viewed more as scientific curiosity than human. Ultimately, Bo had to be the one to stop government interference.
While Marvel and DC alternately push out their annual big budget comic book films,
Fast Color wedges between the tough industry cracks-- a worthwhile triumph. The small budget film has an independent spirited heart placing a generational line of women at the crux and deserves all the buzz and praise received. It shows mothers and daughters repairing fragile damages, challenging authority together, venturing down the road to something once forbidden, and leaving all wounds to the conjured wind.
