The film "Black Moses" is a documentary, a poem, a metaphor--it has the guy from the Allstate Insurance ads in it. "Black Moses" is everything. Does that confuse you? Good. Every article about this Bahamian film that I read prior to seeing it for myself only confused me and made me scream in frustration "What is Black Moses?
Incidentally, the film is trying to answer that very question. "Black Moses" is a 95-minute exploration of the messianic archetype among black people during the mid 20th Century, which is to say a critique of what leadership is. While it may be easy to simplify the piece by saying that it is a documentary about former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling, it's more than that.
The main character of the movie is the philosophical concept of "Black Moses" played by Dennis Haysbert. The filmmaker, Travolta Cooper, both literally and metaphorically asks "Black Moses" to reveal himself but the shadowy specter never does. Only by showing us the rise and fall of Sir Lynden Pindling, who is one of many "Black Moseses" (or as my editor is telling me Mosesi) that we understand what is a Black Moses and the context in which these messiahs are created.
Okay, so it is about Sir Lynden, but the film only uses his life as a case story of something greater. The film has shortcomings if approached as a solely historical document because it skims over important periods, people and events of the early 1900s that set the stage for young Pindling. It also abridges the important periods, people and events of the late 1900s that brought down the curtain on the older Pindling, but maybe that is on purpose. Usually narrators are truthful and guide you through the story because they have knowledge of everything, but "Black Moses" is an unreliable narrator. Not that he doesn't know the whole truth, but he's withholding it from the viewer, at times going out of his way to contradict himself. Suffice it to say, this film is rife with metafiction and is what English majors in college dream about when everyone else is dreaming about Megan Good feeding them grapes.
At times it felt like the movie was an apologist's thesis on an infallible leader--then 10 seconds later it painted a picture of a flawed man who was aware of his faults. I loved it and hated it and that is the beauty of the film. The film itself is a metaphor about a metaphor, attempting to present you with both sides of a story, but allowing you to make your mind up about who is Sir Lynden, and the wider question, what is a leader? Is he a perfect hero or cold calculating automaton? Or perhaps he's just a man.
It is the most fitting narrative for one of the most glorified and vilified figures in Bahamian history. Whether you agree with its message or not, it goes further than any other documentary/poem/metaphor in dealing with this subject. Are you confused about what this film is about? Well then maybe you need to watch it. Everyone should.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
