Invoking the neo-realist classics with its aesthetic sensibilities and narrative designs, Nothing But A Man is a harrowing achievement of American cinema, a persuasive and detailed testament to the African American experience in the 1960s American South. Uninterested in melodrama or any true inclinations towards moral claims of right and wrong when it comes to the imperfect characters which it portrays, Nothing But A Man feels more like an experience, one which is piercing in its pure and unadulterated depiction of tough existence of growing up black in a time when equal opportunity was merely aspirational and the only way to live in some semblance of peace was to live it in subservience. Void of sentimentality or any form of emotional conscription, Nothing But A Man encapsulates, through its cinematic rhythm, how rage is simply commonplace, a reactionary device used by our good-natured but flawed protagonist whose been molded by the harsh realities of the world around him in which repression is the norm and servitude the expectation. The mental and physical deterioration such harsh conditions invoke on those who are forced to live in them is fully realized through the film's patriarchal relationship, one in which our young protagonist's father - a man whose temperament is mix of unpleasantry at best, and downright nastiness at worst - transforms over the film's running time into a character who warrants the viewers' sympathy. This man's punch-drunk demeanor serves as warning to our protagonist, a window into the future, the potentially destructive outcome for a young man whose only crime is wanting personal autonomy. Nothing But A Man is a beautifully told narrative that strikes all the right emotive chords throughout its love story between two individuals and their struggles, our female and male protagonists each being erected differently by the racial oppression and social realities of their surroundings.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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