Fast Color
Director: Julia Hart
Year: 2018
Rating: 8.0
This is a film that slipped by me when it was released.
Which is not all that surprising since I don't watch that many new films
and there is just so much content out there. But I saw one of those clickable
articles on the internet claiming that these were the best 25 or maybe it
was 50 superhero films. I was curious to see how many I had seen - sadly
most of them - at heart I am still a 15-year old pimpled nerd waiting for
the next issue of Spider-Man- but this one was on the list and the few words
about it intrigued me. So I ran it down. And I thought it was absolutely
terrific.
A slowly paced cerebral art film really in which a few people have powers
that they try to keep secret from the world. I am not sure putting it on
the same list as Superman, Iron Man and the X-Men does it any favors. It
is nothing like a typical superhero movie - for one thing there really is
no hero in the conventional sense. After watching it, I checked out a few
professional reviews expecting to read hurrahs but instead saw criticisms
that the jolts weren't jolty enough or the scares were not scary enough or
it was too slow. But that was exactly why I liked it so much. It doesn't
go for any cheap thrills but is instead a slow reveal that pulls the viewer
along. At least me. Don't even think of it as a superhero or supernatural
film but instead to me it is a folkloric tale passed down through generations
of females who pass on their power as well through the women in the family.
The power lies with the woman but it is as much a curse as a gift. It is
directed by a woman, Julia Hart, and I think that made all the difference
in the total lack of testosterone in the film. It is inclusive, it is family
and female oriented, it is about conversations had and not had, it is about
matriarchal love often unspoken but fierce. It is a quiet film.
There is no time date on the narrative but it seems to take place in the
future when water is running out and droughts are long-lasting. The land
is parch dry, the crops have shriveled up and died, water is rationed or
expensive, the small towns are nearly deserted and everyone looks dirty and
despairing. A woman is on the run. This is Ruth, a young light-skinned black
woman, with panic in her eyes as she steals cars in her flight to escape.
Escape what or whom or why comes slowly. She checks into a cheap motel and
during the night her hands began to shake and her fingers twitch like rapid
eye movements - she is having a seizure so she ties herself down and calls
the motel manager and tells her to hide under the desk with her daughter
right away. A small earthquake hits the town. And she is on the run again
and now we know an agency is after her. The earthquakes are a beacon to her.
She finds her way home - a big old house in the middle of nowhere with neighbors
that have all left. Her mother and child are there. The relationship between
them all is complicated, problematic - Ruth disappeared years ago because
the earthquakes were uncontrollable - she turned to drugs to stop it - now
she is back clean. But so are the earthquakes and people are after her. But
she isn't the one in the family with the real powers. A low hum tension hangs
over the film from the first frame - mainly because you don't know what is
going on or where it is going but it just feels ominous. Beautifully shot
with the long flat landscapes, the rusty barn, the empty streets all wonderfully
lit - momentary snapshots that feel like a painting of one of Robert Watt's
empty neglected decaying America.
And the acting from the three main women is so heartfelt, so real, so good
- Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ruth, Lorraine Toussaint (Orange is the New Black) as
the mother and Saniyya Sidney as the daughter. David Strathairn shows up
later in the film.
