<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=13w5MU_0wJqRv7W00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=13w5MU_0wJqRv7W00" width="800" height="445" ></figure>In 2019, Colson Whitehead released the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Nickel Boys, a novel based on experiences at the historic and notorious reform school that operated for 111 years. Dozier School closed in 2011, after decades of allegations of beatings, rapes, torture, and murders. The students were segregated, with Black students getting far worse treatment. An investigation that followed Dozier’s closing found over 55 unmarked graves on the land, and they continue to find potential grave sites to this day. Colson’s novel is centered on two characters, Elwood and Turner, two Black teens trying to survive at Nickel Academy, a fictionalized version of Dozier. Whitehead said he was compelled to write the novel after Trump was elected.The narrative feature of the same name was shown at Middleburg Film Festival as the closing film, and what a way to go out. An Oscar nominee for his evocative and visually compelling 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, RaMell Ross uses the same subjective and artistic lens for this new film, his first narrative feature. Nickel Boys is shown entirely from the perspectives of Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), which creates not only a very artistic vision of their experiences, but also demands the audience live their journeys with them, in all their hopeful or horrific detail. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Elwood’s grandmother Hattie, who is all support for a boy who went from being on the way to college, to living through the hell of Nickel, all as a result of unknowingly catching a ride with car thief. Daveed Diggs and Hamish Linklater round out the cast in important co-starring roles. All performers rise to the occasion, although it must have been a challenge to act with the camera as scene partner. The conceit of essentially placing the audience as part of the narrative both works and doesn’t work. The good side is it becomes incredibly poignant and intense, forcing witness to the abuse and inhumanity happening to both Elwood and Turner. As a white woman, and perhaps appropriately, it felt like being asked to question how complicit I am in a society in which George Floyd, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor and so many others die by US law enforcement. It would be incredibly powerful for those who haven’t found empathy at the base of Black Lives Matter to watch this film. At the same time, the style of filming could cause distance or feel manipulative for some viewers. Still, it’s a fearless choice, and for me was a major reason why Nickel Boys stayed with me. This is one story of many representing Black history, which is, of course, American history, that should be told in a cinematic way. RaMell Ross’s visionary style lends further weight to an important subject and should be seen by every kind of movie goer. Here’s hoping it is. 4 out of 5 starsTwitter 0 Facebook 0<ul><li>ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale →</li></ul>Leslie CombemaleLeslie Combemale writes as Cinema Siren on her own website, CinemaSiren.com, and is a frequent contributor to MPA's TheCredits.org, where she interviews filmmakers above and below the line, with a focus on women and diverse voices. She is the Senior Contributor at AWFJ.org. Leslie is in her 9th year as producer and moderator of the influential "Women Rocking Hollywood" panel at San Diego Comic-Con. She is a world-renowned expert on cinema art and her film art gallery, ArtInsights, located near DC, has celebrated cinema art and artists for 30 years.</div></body>

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NICKEL BOYS – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale

In 2019, Colson Whitehead released the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Nickel Boys, a novel based on experiences at the historic and notorious reform school that operated for 111 years. Dozier School closed in 2011, after decades of allegations of beatings, rapes, torture, and murders. The students were segregated, with Black students getting far worse treatment. An investigation that followed Dozier’s closing found over 55 unmarked graves on the land, and they continue to find potential grave sites to this day. Colson’s novel is centered on two characters, Elwood and Turner, two Black teens trying to survive at Nickel Academy, a fictionalized version of Dozier. Whitehead said he was compelled to write the novel after Trump was elected.