Antebellum

The successful trailer of Gerard Bush's first film, Christopher Renz foreshadowed an original and violent fantasy thriller set in two distinct periods and highlighting the many inhumane actions taken against African-American minorities. However, on closer examination, this film should be compared more to Night Shyamalan's The Village (2004) than to an inspiration worthy of one of the best episodes of the fourth dimension.

The idea behind the film worthy of an episode in the fourth dimension is that an African-American in today's society wakes up one morning on a slave plantation from the Civil War era. The editing of the film cut into three distinct parts necessarily leads to an important imbalance, especially concerning the second part which takes place in our society today. While the first minutes of the film, perfectly choreographed and without any words, announced an excellent film, the sequel proves to be rather disappointing, particularly by purely useless scenes breaking the rhythm of the film and leaving us perplexed as to its unfolding.

However, Antebellum had very good cards in hand, notably the presence of the excellent actress Janelle Monáe (Moonlight (2016), Les figures de l'ombre (2016) ...) but also of Jena Malone (Donnie Darko (2001), Into the Wild (2007), the soloist (2009), Inherent Vice (2014), The Neon Demon (2016) ...). In spite of all this important rhythm problem brings to the film a real fragility despite some particularly successful horror scenes. So, we understand better after the first rather negative echoes the direct release in the United States on VOD, while the film was released in theaters with some success on September 9.

In the same way, the numerous white areas left by the script easily complicate our adhesion to this film. Indeed, once the twist is revealed in the middle of the film, we wonder how these African-Americans do not revolt and do not think of joining their forces since they are clearly more numerous than their torturers. What could have been an excellent fantasy film set either in two distinct universes or in the past turns out to be just a pale copy of the Night Shyamalan film without really bringing anything new.

Antebellum
Written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz
Produced by Raymond Mansfield, Sean McKittrick, Zev Forman, Gerard Bush, Christopher Renz, Lezlie Wills
Starring Janelle Monáe, Marque Richardson, Eric Lange, Jack Huston, Kiersey Clemons, Tongayi Chirisa, Gabourey Sidibe, Robert Aramayo, Lily Cowles, Jena Malone
Music by Nate Wonder, Roman Gianarthur
Cinematography: Pedro Luque
Edited by John Axelrad
Production companies: QC Entertainment
Distributed by Lionsgate (USA), Metropolitan FilmExport (France)
Release: September 18 2020 (VOD) (USA), September 9 2020 (Frace)

Seen on September 19, 2020 at Gaumont Disney Village, Room 9 seat H23

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