REVIEW:
Nickel Boys
this decade so far has been defined by cinematic self-indictment, yielding personal stories like Aftersun, construction-and-deconstruction blockbusters like Nope, and attempts at American historical repentance like Killers of the Flower Moon. RaMell Ross’s narrative debut is the culmination of these efforts—or potentially just the climax, but undeniably the American film of a generation.
Ross works as director and camera operator, conceiving of the film entirely in literal and metaphysical point-of-view. we see either through the eyes of Elwood or Turner, our two protagonists, sometimes blurring between them. the only interruptions are out-of-body but simultaneously informed by the person we’re watching through—like dreams and memory alike. jumping off Ross’s initial experience with documentary filmmaking, scenes are interspliced with archival footage from real-life history, photos and news items assembled for the setting at hand, and written dream sequences, all spanning across decades between the 20th and 21st centuries. the film cycles through the real (our world) and the manufactured (the film’s world). there’s a conscious decision here to frame the film in 1.33:1—the original aspect ratio standardized for the photo imprint on 35mm film, and eventually the computer monitor screen standard (from the early days of the computer to the introduction of widescreen monitors in the 2000s) known better as 4:3—to bridge the decades across the screen. it also serves as a harsh limit for the audience within the confines of someone else’s viewpoint.
those of a certain age associate the digital sheen of an RGB matrix and VHS scanlines with memory and recollection. using the first-and second-person perspectives, Ross reminds us that the picture in all its forms has been a tool of memory from the very start. Elwood and Turner dream in classic Hollywood films, television, and home movies; via news cameras and NASA footage, still photographs, newspaper scans, and webpages; of straightforward memory and with experimental dream sequences. all is archival. nothing is a straightforward snapshot in time. dreams are piecemeal recollections and revisions of what we know; memory is the active function of the brain which dreams as it rests.
a crack in the glass may show itself as a lack of real development in these characters, from Elwood and Turner to the rest of the boys of the Nickel Academy, from the adults on the outside to the men running the place inside. we see glimpses of their personalities and motivations, but nothing in-depth to be so revealing of their aspirations and desires. it’s likely to be a feature, not a bug. the boys are hidden away from the world, stripped of all meaning but to be slave labor for the era of civil rights marches. they are not allowed to be more than what they are, and they haven’t come very far in figuring out who they are before they’ve been locked up at Nickel Academy. in some cases, they’ll never become fully-fledged people—instead, they’ll be pieces to connect to a horrifying act of American history, dug up in search of some “truth” and presented to a people who refuse introspection. for the employees of the Academy, they’ll consciously never show an ounce of humanity to the boys, and so there’s no reason they can be seen as anything other than evil itself, walking upon this earth. yet, to the outside world that holds no curiosity for an Academy with consistently disappearing juveniles, they’ll simply be seen as upstanding American neighbors. without further info, will you be able to empathize with these boys as realized people?
a turn of the story comes, but it’s both misleading and inadequate to simply call it a twist. in little peeks on the screen and barbs in the dialogue, we see some kind of horror creeping our way. Ross doesn’t lean into building up a moment to gasp at, instead riding the unease of what’s clear to come to make the audience exhale with anguish. at this point, the point-of-view construction has settled in. the audience has long been filling in the gaps of what can’t be seen on the limited field of vision. when the camera suddenly chimes in on the story at hand, an entire world comes into focus. Ross comes to achieve the view of what feels like an all-seeing eye, across time and across all life—the viewer’s eye, processing narrative.
it’s reaffirming and revelatory to see this film on the heels of David Lynch’s passing. how deeply painful it is to remember. how evil it feels to reconstruct the story of a real person through yourself. how terrifying and wonderful that all of our lives are what we conceive out of dreams.