The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Directed by Nate Parker
Nat Turner, a former slave in America, leads a liberation movement in 1831 to free African-Americans in Virginia that results in a violent retaliation from whites.
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What critics say influenced The Birth of a Nation
Unlike 12 Years, a movie that made no concession to the audience’s thirst for comeuppance, Birth of a Nation is very much a revenge movie — one that has been compared to Braveheart, even if Turner is never as wild-eyed or ferocious as Mel Gibson’s William Wallace.
But in its depiction of an underdog hero who fights injustice by taking up arms, The Birth Of A Nation also echoes sweeping period dramas such as Braveheart — which, incidentally, also won Best Picture.
Subtlety is dispensed with in the film’s final third, which echoes “Braveheart,” with its hero who gives his all fighting for the freedom of his people.
Vengeance is his, Nat hears from the lord, and The Birth of a Nation becomes a freedom manifesto as bloody as Braveheart, primed to inspire and disturb.
Many have already compared it to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart," which is apt.
Apparently made in tribute to bad 1990s epics, The Birth of a Nation boasts Braveheart battles and a Legends of the Fall score and doesn’t offer a single original visual idea.
When Turner is whipped for his insubordination, it recalls "The Passion of the Christ" both visually and thematically; when he leads a group of ragtag slaves, armed with knives and sledges, into a gory skirmish, it brings to mind William Wallace charging into battle.
Like The Passion of the Christ and even Braveheart, Birth is both brutal and ecstatic.
Thus, Birth becomes the most forthrightly Christian film at this level of quality since The Passion of the Christ (a movie with which this shares many flaws, oddly).
In "Braveheart," " The Passion of the Christ " and "Apocalypto," the directing itself seems possessed, guided by voices.
It’s not a revenge fiction à la Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained .
If you combine Steve McQueen's art installation sensibilities from 12 Years A Slave with the blood soaked vengeance of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, you get the basic gist of what The Birth of a Nation ends up becoming once the sum of its parts is totaled.
Where films like Django Unchained allow you the blaxploitation fantasies of exacting vengeance on the worst of the worst; Birth of a Nation wants to reinforce while the historically displaced and disenfranchised have hate tattooed on their very bones.
It lacks the formal elegance and technical rigor of Steve McQueen’s “ 12 Years a Slave ” and the shrewd revisionism of Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” favoring the more banal rhetoric of easily digestible historical drama, spiked with startling touches of symbolism, such as when Turner is visited by a white-clad descending angel.
The Birth of a Nation suddenly takes a page out of Gangs of New York or the finale of Django Unchained and becomes this crimson stained revenge thriller.
Still, the wide success of 12 Years a Slave, not to mention Django Unchained, augers well for the enterprisingly made film’s commercial future.
Apparently made in tribute to bad 1990s epics, The Birth of a Nation boasts Braveheart battles and a Legends of the Fall score and doesn’t offer a single original visual idea.
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In "Braveheart," " The Passion of the Christ " and "Apocalypto," the directing itself seems possessed, guided by voices.
Neste sentido, é preciso reconhecer a capacidade de um realizador como Mel Gibson de perceber, em obras como Coração Valente e Apocalypto , como a violência pode funcionar para instigar debates sobre a moralidade (ou falta de) por trás de posturas bárbaras.