It’s in 1968 – one of the most seismic years in history – that Steve McQueen’s ambitious new film anthology Small Axe, starts out. Mangrove, the first installment, illuminates the true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of black activists named after the Trinidad-born Frank Crichlow’s Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill.
The Mangrove restaurant, it turns out, is a hub for black intellectuals and radical thinkers – including members of the British Black Panther movement – and a vital, beloved part of the community.
One night, an impromptu street party takes place outside, complete with steelpan players, dancing and laughter. Moments later, the scene cuts to the jarring silence of the local PC Pulley (Sam Spruell) watching from a patrol car, a presence that continues to haunt the area. “You see the thing about the black man is he’s got his place, he’s just got to know his place,” he says, forebodingly, to a younger colleague. It’s a statement which ultimately sets the tone for the film, as the police launch a series of raids on the restaurant.
ArrayPulley’s accusations against the Mangrove are inexhaustible, believing the restaurant to be a den of “illegal gambling, ponces, nonces, tarts, late night queer parties and drug dealing”, yet none of the raids turn up any concrete evidence.
Even Frank’s menu, which specialises in West Indian specialties like crab and callaloo, is suspect to Pulley. As his excuses run thin, it becomes clear the raids are racially motivated.
Amidst the onslaught of raids, a moving scene encapsulates the Mangrove’s true value, when an old woman enters and says earnestly to Frank (Shaun Parkes): “This is the place what makes me know this really my home from home now.” With that, she slides a biscuit tin full of money (saved up since she arrived from Jamaica) across the counter. “Just know, Frank – this [place] make me happy.” The emotion in her eyes is telling of just how integral the Mangrove has become to the Caribbean community – possibly far more than Frank realises.
In the second raid, a close-up of Frank being pinned to the floor by an officer yelling, “shut it, you fucking black bastard” is made all the more unsettling by the skewed camera angle, tilted at floor level.
As the police retreat, their boots pound the wooden stairwell and the audience is left with the scene of an upset colander rocking to a stop on the kitchen floor.
The frame is held several beats longer than anticipated and the effect is like a visual caesura, a space to let the violence of the previous scene settle, pushing us to confront our own discomfort.
ArraySuch scenes coupled with the harsh juxtapositions between tender moments (Aunt Betty [Llewella Gideon] singing) and violence (door kicked in by police), serve to underscore the perpetual unease.
Fed up with the relentless harassment, Frank decides to join a band of activists and help organise a demonstration against racial discrimination. Though his initial stance is one of reluctance (‘[the Mangrove’s] a restaurant, not a battlefield’), Frank is pushed to the edge when his complaints go unheeded. (We later learn that the restaurant is raided nine times in six weeks.)
Speaking with activist and lawyer Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby), Frank vents his frustration, to which Darcus tells him straight-up: “your strategy of relying on the white establishment will never work, Frank.”
There is no alternative, Frank realises, but to take to the streets. Armed with placards and chanting ‘hands off black people’, the group marches to the local police station joined by more than a hundred others.
But what sets out as a peaceful protest culminates in a violent confrontation with the police, resulting in the nine being tried for incitement to riot.
The remainder of the film follows the 55-day trial held at the Old Bailey, as the defendants make a powerful case that ultimately reveals the weakness of the prosecuting testimonies given by the police.
Steve McQueen, director of Small Axe, with John Boyega
Letitia Wright’s performance as Altheia Jones-LeCointe – leader of the British Black Panthers – is especially compelling here. Soft-spoken yet fearless and determined, her character rallies the group and acts as an anchoring force, highlighting the often overlooked role of black women.
Her declaration, “we mustn’t be victims but protagonists of our stories” resounds throughout, and is reflective of the fact that many of the actors share a lived experience with the characters they play.
While courtroom dramas can be staid and dull, McQueen brings an electric intensity to each scene, effortlessly shifting between the emotive speeches to the more comic aspects of court etiquette that seem stuck in a bygone age.
At intervals, the group is filmed moving through the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the Old Bailey, which themselves echo the convolution and archaicness of the British court system. McQueen also savours the tedious silences of the courtroom – drawing them out and incorporating ominous pans of the ceiling, a mural with the words ‘TRUTH’ and ‘ART’ (the very things he strives to achieve with this film).
This close attention to detail and the signs implicit within each frame are evident from the opening sequence. As Frank walks the West London streets, graffiti slogans reflect the divisive rhetoric and brewing spirit of rebellion that characterised the era: “Eat the rich”, “Wogs out” and “Powell for PM” (a reference to Enoch Powell, who delivered the infamous anti-immigrant ‘rivers of blood’ speech in April 1968).
Growing up as a working-class boy in West London during the 1970s and 80s (with a father who personally knew one of the Mangrove Nine), this is one of McQueen’s most personal works yet. From the conceptual art world to Hollywood, his career trajectory is all the more remarkable considering his humble origins. After winning the Turner Prize in 1999, he travelled as an official war artist to Iraq in 2003; then in 2008, he directed his first feature film Hunger (about the 1981 Irish hunger strike), before going on to direct Shame (about a sex addict); and in 2013, he became the first black feature film director to win an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave.
ArrayThough his films often tackle deep-rooted issues and taboo subjects, McQueen insists he’s not a political film-maker, but says philosophically in an interview with The Guardian: “then again, even falling in love is political. Nothing is isolated from the world we live in.”
With Small Axe (part 1), McQueen succeeds in reviving a story that still resonates today, exposing just how much (and how little) has changed since 1968. Despite its heaviness, Mangrove bears an underlying message of hope and demonstrates the potential for even the smallest victories to make a difference.
In the end, the Mangrove 9 was a landmark trial, one that marked the first time racism within the Metropolitan Police was openly acknowledged in a judicial setting – and that’s something to be celebrated. Without telling these untold stories, the history of Britain – as Darcus emphasises in his closing speech at the trial – remains incomplete.
Small Axe is available on BBC One.
