What did it mean, what does it mean, and what will it mean to be a Black American? These are the questions at the heart of Nickel Boys, a powerful and poetic reflection on Black identity, whose experimental form redefines audience involvement in storytelling. Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title, the film follows Elwood (Ethan Herisse), an ambitious and promising teenager sent to an infamous Florida reform school following a tragic coincidence.
In Nickel Academy, based on a real-life Dozier School for Boys, Elwood and his peers experience dehumanising treatment and physical and mental abuse. They are repeatedly told to abandon any dreams they might have had for the future. This is the microcosm of America of the early 1960s, a country engaging in deep racial segregation, where the hopes provided by Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement have not yet materialised.
Although engaging with a dark and gruesome part of American history, the film doesn’t dwell on the immediate pain inflicted on innocent individuals. The far-reaching discrimination central to the American system is so strongly embedded in personal experiences that it requires no sensationalism. Instead, director RaMell Ross implements a unique POV perspective, inviting the audience to become both active observers and close companions to Elwood and his friend Turner (Brandon Wilson). The bond that forms as a result of this experiment is not only between the two boys but also between the film’s world and us: the viewers. We partake in conversations and experience entrapment through Elwood’s and Turner’s eyes and hearts as much as through our own. Yet, we also feel the flickers of life — hope, resilience, and the warmth of Grandma Hattie’s (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) love-filled hugs.
Living in a miserable world without being consumed by its despair becomes a survival mechanism. Each individual finds their own way to process it, some believing that the future will reconcile the crimes of the past. Elwood’s adult life, shown in only a few glimpses, makes us wonder if such reconciliation can ever deliver justice. Can uncovering the truth heal deep wounds, or does it merely add another layer to the complex, transgenerational identity marked by centuries of oppression?
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening Director RaMell Ross at the 2018 Montclair Film Festival” by Montclair Film is licensed under CC BY 2.0.