There’s a moment towards the end of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, where Jimmie Fails (played by himself) overhears a couple girls on a tram complain about how much it sucks to live in San Francisco. At this point, he’s had dreams crushed and his future thrown in jeopardy as a direct result of the city’s current socio-economic climate; however, he turns around and tells them that they aren’t allowed to hate it unless they love it. That dichotomy permeates the astonishing film debut of Joe Talbot, which is as much a love letter to the titular City by the Bay as it is a critique of it. San Francisco is represented in all its glory and grime as Talbot and Fails tell a semi-autobiographical story of a man desperately trying to reclaim a family home lost to gentrification.
It’s an ornate house in the Fillmore District built by Jimmie’s grandfather during the latter years of the Second World War. He lived in it for part of his childhood, but has since been forced through group homes and fallen estranged of most of his family. Now on the verge of homelessness and sharing a room with his best friend Montgomery Allen (an exceptional Jonathan Majors) in the bay area home of Mont’s blind father (Danny Glover), Jimmie continues to trespass on the home and ensure its upkeep. In fact we’re introduced to the house through Jimmie repainting the window panes as its affluent white owners return from an outing, apparently accustomed to and annoyed by his presence. But Jimmie can’t help tend to the place, he has a sense of ownership over it; to him, losing it was the greatest tragedy his family suffered and it represents all the potential and fortune denied him. Jimmie has tied his whole identity to the house, his sense of belonging; which becomes especially damaging when a conflict within the estate renders it empty for an indefinite period of time, and he and Mont illegally move in, change the locks, and transform it into their home. Jimmie even chases the past to the extent he takes what’s left of the old furniture from an aunt (Tichina Arnold) to redecorate and recapture its former glory.
What’s consistently compelling about this movie is the way it seamlessly weaves intersectional critique and civic commentary through a deeply personal story. Jimmie Fails produced and co-wrote the film in addition to starring in it explicitly as himself, which takes a great deal of bravery and introspection for someone on their first acting credit. He demonstrates an admirable willingness to be vulnerable, to be honest, and it may be because of just how personal the story is, not so much in plot as in feeling. Because Jimmie’s fight for the house is a small battle really. In the first great sequence of the film, Jimmie and Mont skateboard through a humble black neighbourhood that turns into the thoroughfare of the city itself, predominantly white, with the few black people there living in various states of social neglect -all while a melancholy dirge colours the moment with a passionate poetry. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is not about a house.
As a tour guide explains at one point, the Fillmore District was once known as “the Harlem of the West”, but now the black population of that neighbourhood has been stripped to the bone. Gentrification is the unspoken root of all evil for the black characters of this movie, from Jimmie’s father (Rob Morgan), making bootleg DVDs in a rundown apartment, to Bobby (Mike Epps) living in a tacky car, to even a born-again Bay Area street preacher (Willie Hen). The omnipresence of this reality in the lives of the black people left in and around San Francisco is unavoidable, as are its repercussions in their attitudes. In trying to reclaim that posh house, Jimmie earns the derision of a gang of local loiterers, including a childhood friend Kofi (Jamal Trulove), for a perceived sense of superiority. Mont, an unsuccessful playwright and artist, is subjected even more to their taunts, though is nonetheless inspired by them. Always dressed in a tweed jacket and maintaining a soft-spoken demeanour, except for when rehearsing his own lines, Mont is a clear outlier in his home environment. Through the treatment of him and his closeness with Jimmie, both by other characters and the filmmaking, the movie examines toxic masculinity quite evocatively and intelligently, and at the same time a subtle idea of blackness itself.
San Francisco is to blame for this -its economic turbulence, decimated working class and consequent high poverty rates; and yet for all of this, Fails’ and Talbots’ love for the city shines through. The films’ tranquil pace and formalist tendencies suggest an atmosphere of mellow serenity and untapped inspiration, the cinematography by Adam Newport-Berra is lustrous, and the orchestral score by Emile Mosseri is enrapturing, capped with a soulful rendition of “If You’re Going to San Francisco” by Michael Marshall -who appears in the movie along with a slew of other local San Franciscan personalities as a testament to the breadth of artistry found in that West Coast metropolis. As we see the homeless sleeping in subway terminals, so too do we see the Golden Gate Bridge at dusk. While a naked man waits at a bus stop, an experimental one-man show is performed in the attic of a Victorian house. This isn’t a movie aiming merely to tear down a problematic urban process, it believes in the betterment of its community. Which is why it no doubt pains Fails and Talbot to have to take the route of pessimism.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco is wonderful; a stirring and powerful debut for both its young director and star. With its truthful, nuanced, and inimitable relationship to its setting, and a sharp handle on its themes and purpose married to a distinct and stunning approach, it’s the kind of movie that will only prove more meaningful as time goes by.
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