So, I’ve now watched the other four Small Axe movies (which are in the 60-90 minute range — so significantly shorter than Mangrove — so I’m going to group them all together). Spoilers follow, but if you want the tldr, what I’ll say is that while they’re each their own film, the larger project is definitely its own coherent entity, too, and that in a kaleidoscopic sort of way, they’re painting a picture of life in the West Indian community in London in the ’60s and ‘70s. The films are good to excellent individually, and straight-up excellent considered as a singular project. You can watch them on Amazon Prime.

So Lovers Rock is the one that’s gotten maybe the most critical plaudits, and also the one that’s the least like the others. Because it’s a house party, basically; it starts with people setting up speakers and moving furniture outside, and then it just stays at the party and kinda flits around checking in on different people.

Probably the biggest “storyline” that runs through it is a couple that ends up getting together at the party, but it’s mostly about the party itself, and the energy and vibe of the thing, with people dancing and singing and hooking up and getting mad and doing dangerous things. It’s got some of the same physical energy as Gaspar Noé’s Climax, except with a totally different feel, in that it’s not all fucked-up and weird and dark, but is joyful and hopeful and oh so very young.

Red, White and Blue (a title which confused me until I remembered that those are also the colours of the British flag) is about the police. John Boyega plays the son of a man who’s been hassled by the police in blatantly racist ways, and joins the force to change it from the inside. The movie is about how this decision changes his relationship with his family and his community — his dad in particular hates the police and it tears him up to see his son become one — and then on the agonizing, crushing effort of trying to change a terrible system from the inside as a single person without the support of your peers and superiors. This is another “based on a true story” one.

As an aside, watching this and thinking about how vocally unhappy Boyega has been about his Star Wars experience, it’s pretty easy to see why an actor would much rather work on something like this than a movie where he spends all his time shouting in front of a green screen and then getting hated by toxic “fans” forever. (Also, the movie couldn’t resist a little Star Wars joke when his character said he’s “joining the Force.”)

Alex Wheatle is the one the critics are the mehest about, and I can see why, but also kinda disagree? It’s another true story, about the early life of a novelist, but it’s not really about him as a novelist — it focuses on his early adulthood, mostly. He grew up in foster care, and so we see him not really being part of any world. Because he was raised by white families, he doesn’t have the connection to the Black community and its norms — he doesn’t understand slang, he doesn’t know how to dress, how to walk — but to all the super-racist cops and other institutions, he’s a Black kid no matter how much he’s absorbed white cultural norms. And so we see him make friends and build up a community. There’s not much of a story beyond his evolution as a person, but that’s done really well.

Education is the last one, and this is the one that feels the most like a true story, but isn’t. Because so what it’s about is the practice of transferring Black students to “special schools” (as they describe them to the mother of a student being transferred) or “schools for the educationally sub-normal” (as they are formally called).

Like Mangrove, this one is both about individuals but also about larger social action groups, who try to work outside of the system to remedy things by setting up weekend schools for these kids to go to and actually learn things, and inside the system by writing letters of appeal to the Minister of Education (who they are optimistic about because she’s new to the job so will perhaps be open to reform, and it’s absolutely gutting when they then name her as Margaret Thatcher).

Overall, the series does an amazing job of evoking its time and place especially visually, with movies that look and feel of a piece while also being quite individual.

And by looking at so many people in such different circumstances, it manages to convey the sheer oppressive weight of fighting a system so resolutely stacked against you — it’s one thing to have a movie where a singular protagonist is able to beat back a shitty cop, but then to have other shitty cops grinding down another protagonist, and another, and an education system doing the same to children, and a foster home system that’s a pipeline into jail… the series is both honoring the fight of all these people while also acknowledging that they don’t want to be fighting and that these fights are consuming lives that could be spent in happier pursuits. And I think Lovers Rock plays such a critical role in that context in the series: Here, in this house, away from all those engines of oppression, is the kind of joy and community that’s possible.

Strongly recommended.