Just over halfway into “Lovers Rock”, at a party where the music has been bursting through the sound systems for much of the runtime, the DJ stops the music and lets the crowd ‘vibe out’ a cappella. They’re singing the 1979 Janet Kay track, ‘Silly Games’. Shabier Kirchner’s camera weaves through the crowd, as we watch each member of the party gyrating and singing along. Jacqueline Durran’s costumes hug each member of the crowd. The shadows and light fall on the bodies, exuberant in joy and it seems as if the party is moving in slow motion. It’s not, though. But the sheer exuberant joy of the moment feels intoxicating and immediately redolent. As the entire room sings out the lyrics, it is as if they don’t want to stop singing. They don’t want this moment of communal joy to end. And neither do we.
“Lovers Rock”, which opened the New York Film Festival on Thursday, is part of the upcoming anthology series “Small Axe,” from director Steve McQueen. The anthology’s title derives from the Jamaican proverb, ‘If you are the big tree, we are the small axe’. And, so, “Small Axe” mines the ideas of community in its stories of West Indian solidarity from the 1960s to the 1980s in areas of London. The anthology covers five distinct stories, three of which will premiere at the festival. “Lovers Rock”, a moody glimpse of a young love, house parties and good vibes, is the only fictional story in the collection. But, it’s easy to see why it marks the premiere of the anthology at the Festival, providing the first glimpse of McQueen’s vision for audiences.
There’s something pleasantly jarring about the way that “Lovers Rock” feels like a swerve in McQueen’s filmography. The director’s work has been marked by a vivid interest in excavating humanity in crisis. From “Widows” to “12 Years A Slave” to “Shame”, McQueen’s work has always been marked by the fraught emotions on display. “Lovers Rock”, though, is a welcome outlier – not just in McQueen’s oeuvre but in the representations of blackness on screen. The film’s opening tracks the preparations for a house party. The older women tend to the food in the kitchen, while the young men work on moving the furniture. We watch a DJ rehearsing.
The camera moves up and out through the house as we hear the strains of the Caribbean accents countered by the British inflections. Before “Lovers Rock” works on establishing a character, the film immediately establishes a sense of place that is striking. Helen Scott’s production design evokes the specificity of this cultural mix as we watch the nods to the Caribbean on the walls and in the décor. We might not know these people, but the sense of place and detail in “Lovers Rock” is immediately evocative.
Character comes later in the form of Martha (sharply played by Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn). We first meet Martha making her covert escape from her bedroom window. She’s meeting her friend Patti, with whom she makes her way to the house party. Their excitement and mild nervousness are potent. But they dissipate when the party’s lone bouncer lets them in for free. From there, “Lover Rock” plays with the narrative, suggestive more than explicative when it comes to plot-points, but effusive and profound when it comes to capturing a mood. McQueen’s script, co-written with Courttia Newland, is low on drama and complications, but instead gently details a vivid exploration of culture. The two girls are cornered by a pair of solicitous young men. Martha is intrigued. But Patti is sceptical, bowing out of the party early as Martha watches from the bathroom window. But the party is just beginning and Martha soon gets swept up in the music, and swept into the arms of Franklyn, the charming stranger beside her.
From there, “Lovers Rock” transforms into a sensuous, mood-piece. Even the recurring police sirens, a brief glimpse of threatening whiteness in the form of a group of menacing boys, or the appearance of Martha’s angry young cousin can’t threaten the easy mood of uninhibited black joy coming out from the speakers and spiling on to the dance floor.
Jamaican-born British actor Micheal Ward plays Franklyn with a warm sensuality that makes for great chemistry with newcomer St. Aubyn. The film’s closing moments evoke the gentle thrill of a burgeoning romance with an earnest tenderness that would make even the most cynical among us smile. The way that “Lovers Rock” binds itself to the interpersonal feels valuable for the way McQueen announces the simple act of young love as vital and worthy of a story.
McQueen directs the middle portion of “Lovers Rock” like tactile party experience that makes us feel like participants rather than voyeurs. The soundtrack churns out hit after hit. There is Scratch Perry’s ‘Dreadlocks in the Moonlight’. Then Gregory Isaac’s ‘My Conversation’. Sister Sledge’s ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ feels knowing and apt. And the audience’s rapturous recognition of the opening notes of Carl Douglas’ ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ is irresistible. It’s all leading up to that ‘Silly Games” sequence, as the party and the music reach to a crescendo.
By the point that the sing-a-long comes, Martha and Franklyn’s chemistry has been confirmed. Martha has interrupted an episode of sexual harassment. And the undercurrent of white authorities patrolling the area has been established. But, for that moment as the entire party rocks and sways to ‘Silly Games,’ McQueen evokes the specific feeling of being so enraptured by the vibe that you can feel the yearning to stay. In that moment, this is a party that we don’t want to leave. It’s as true for Martha, Franklyn and the rest of the partygoers as it is for the audience watching on. “Lovers Rock” is an intoxicating and irresistible burst of black joy on screen.
After its NYFF premiere, Small Axe will air on BBC One in the UK and then Amazon Prime in the rest of the world later in the year.
