Antebellum stars the luminous, multitalented Janelle Monae as Eden, an enslaved woman trying to escape, and Veronica, an accomplished academic and cable television talking head. What is the connection? I saw the preview for this film and would have seen it in theaters if it was not for the pandemic. Instead I saw it at home as soon as it became available on DVD, and the pandemic saved me from wasting my time, money and effort.
When I watch horror films, I always ask myself which of the following three explain what is unfolding on screen: the supernatural, science or reality is just that messed up. Because I studied nineteenth century American history, i.e. slavery, World War II, i.e. the Holocaust, and am a black woman in America who constantly keeps apprised of how racism in current events could affect me, I actually figured out the twist in possibly less than five minutes. Antebellum is the kind of movie that you make if you admire M. Night Shyamalan’s lesser works, and I do not want to explicitly reference the specific one that it reminds me of because then I will give it away to you. It is really sad that the filmmakers think that they are being so mind bending, but it is like a gifted toddler making you a breakfast that looks amazing, but they mixed up sugar and salt. They did great for first time feature film makers, but they need to look at where they are in comparison to other horror films, especially those with black protagonists, and maybe spend more time on the story because when horror is so literal, they may as well just make a documentary to say the same thing except then they do not get the cathartic ending, which as much as I love revenge movies, is only mildly satisfying and not worth the psychological toll of getting there.
Antebellum’s narrative structure, not its actual story, is the real flaw. Between the trailer giving away too much about the twist and using a criminally extensive How We Got Here trope to open the film, i.e. showing the movie’s events out of chronological order, the movie sabotages itself and drains any suspense the viewer may initially have held when watching the movie. It also rushes over the logistics of getting from one point to the other. We see where it starts and what the result is, but what is the transition process? Midsommar is so riveting because the transformation is so seamless, and it happens to us as vicariously as viewers. It felt as if the supporting characters deserved to be fleshed out more or not focused on at all. There are all these relationships that are referenced and sound intriguing, but are under explored. The filmmakers prioritize capturing the indignities and savagery of slavery over what made certain trafficked people decide to work together, trust each other and risk everything based on their shared plight, which is why the catharsis feels cheap. Instead the filmmakers show when the connection is not made. It felt like a failure of imagination.
Visually Antebellum is stunning. There are delicious long tracking shots. The colors are vibrant. The film feels like a painting. The composition of the shots tell the story better than the actual words, which feel as if the writers sent more time reading the tweets from PhDs than actually reading the work. We mainly get medium shots where we are deliberately not shown a speaker’s face, or the focus is just on character’s legs. There are slight details in the production design that provide keys to the denouement and earlier elements in the plot. Pay attention to the photographs in Veronica’s apartment.
Antebellum adheres way too much to torture porn for me to recommend it. I love the idea, the actors and the visual style, but if I am going to watch a movie about slavery, I would prefer to watch a film that is actually based on true stories of survival and escape than one that is more fascinated by the cruelty than the societal logistics of retaining one’s humanity in the face of that cruelty. The second act is the most interesting and should have been the first with the second act devoted to how one retains oneself in an inhumane world. If you want to be the next Get Out, then just shamelessly mimic it. Don’t use gimmicks. Horror audiences are way too savvy and watch way too many movies to win us over with something so basic.
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I was disappointed that Antebellum took the easy route by being literal without really digging into the logistics. I feel as if every Black person in America has considered that the US would love to go back to slavery, especially considering the Dred Scott decision is only overturned because of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment, and considered what it would mean for us on a personal level. If this film was a Blumhouse Production, like The Purge franchise, this film could have found a way to be rooted in practical reality while teasing out our subconscious fears about how our society could descend into madness and how ordinary citizens would resist that descent throughout the texture of the narrative.
Veronica and Eden are the same person. An elected Louisiana politician has an amusement park, called Antebellum, that is the cover for a twenty-first century trafficked person plantation. The clever part of the film is how this particular group of racists anachronistically take their favorite parts of slavery and the Final Solution (crematoriums) to create a racist playground in which they get to be Confederate soldiers and slave owners who stay home and torment their slaves with meaningless work, torture, rape and death. I immediately recognized the nationalist language in the early scenes, “Blood and Soil,” “nationalist state,” “faith, family, folk.” They kidnapped Veronica so they could enjoy breaking a high-profile black woman and making her submissive, Eden. I am disappointed that the movie omits the process. You made this story, not me. What breaks her and then makes her engage in kintsugi, putting herself back together again into a stronger, more beautiful woman. How does she create a hidden community to resist? By imagining how it would look today, we could learn more about how it looked then. I think that the film makes the mistake of exceptionalism as if she is special, and the only one who can do it when it seemed as if everyone was on the verge of snapping. The movie cares more about the particulars of torture than daily and sensational resistance. The filmmakers seem to be exclaiming, “Imagine a free person like you then becoming enslaved.” Um, yeah, that is what slavery is. I do not need it to occur in the present day to go there. I was already there. Also slavery does still exist, but it looks nothing like a plantation.
I actually wished that Antebellum was supernatural. I must confess that I am tired of movies solely focusing on the two-dimensional, obvious racist white person when our entire society is permeated by the legacy and original sin of slavery, including those who imagine themselves as allies. It is too easy to write off the sin on the obviously dangerous ones when everyone can be complicit on some level. The idea of the past reaching forward and leaking into the present is far more terrifying because innocuous elements of society could be unknowingly saturated with the blood of our ancestors and the idea of that evil igniting in our time to harm us is far more intriguing. I normally hate jump scares, but when Veronica and her friends are going to the restaurant and are startled by a horse pulling a carriage, it felt as if the movie unwittingly evoked the terror. Slavery is a ghost story like The Shining except the US is the Overlook Hotel. The hotel scenes are the best parts of the film in the eerie, subtle ways that slavery seems to still dominate the present even on an aesthetic level.
While I feel as if I am too old to enjoy time travel movies, Antebellum could have worked well as a horror sci-fi movie if black people inadvertently got sucked into the past. I feel as if it would have been a terrific rebuke to the “I am not my ancestors” sentiments in revealing what titans the originally trafficked people were to survive and find ways to survive an unimaginably horrific way of life and provided an opportunity to create a timeless communion of the saints conversation between the past and present survivors and thrivers. What lessons from the past are still practical but often forgotten yet could be applicable in the future?
Antebellum had high points. I loved how Veronica’s cultural appropriation by being an equestrian and doing yoga helped her escape. The latter reminded me of Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In. The real lesson of the movie felt as if it was screw your family, party with your friends. I did not expect Gabourey Sidibe and Lily Cowles to be so refreshing in the movie. Instead of getting punished, the more flashy, outspoken women are safe. Is that a slight dig at the dangers of heteronormative life? Maybe knowing that Monae is bi or pansexual colored my reading of her character’s marriage, but I read her husband as queer as well. Jena Malone is the only one who really worked in every location in her ability to racist code switch, and I loved the idea of her always being the real driver behind this new racist society. The butterfly imagery of her book and the promotional art for the film fell flat. Yes, I saw Julia’s ankle. I enjoyed the Hansel and Gretel denouement, but the Civil War reenactment ride through felt rushed. How many are consciously complicit and need to get arrested and how many were genuine, clueless visitors? While I appreciate that Antebellum references, but does not make a spectacle of rape, it also felt glossed over. It is more about witnessing these dangerous sickos’ wishes comes to life than people dealing with the practical and psychological impact of dehumanizing and invasive abuse. If the movie is really about her perspective, then the camera should not show the point of view of the torturer so often. The hostility between Eden and Julia behind closed doors does not work for me.
Antebellum could have worked if it took a page from Hereditary and simply told the story in a chronological way, but the obsession with twists straight from The Village undercut the story’s impact. The pool is shallow.
