The Last Black Man in San Francisco

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🎙️ EPISODE 454: 04.27.22 The main character of this movie is named Jimmie Fails and he is played by the actor Jimmie Fails. I thought, while I was watching this, that the surname FAILS was a little too ON THE NOSE as a metaphor. Failure — be it personal, societal, institutional, etc. — is a major theme here. Jimmie Fails was not the last black man in San Francisco, just as his grandfather wasn't the first. It's about failure to see the truth even when it's right in front of your eyes. And you might call this denial, but I think it's something deeper. This is a movie about gentrification, which is a rare conceptual thing that's as oblique as it is sinisterly evil on a macro level, but as simple and plain old mean, an evil any child could see when viewed up close. It's perfectly encompassed with this shot of a construction foreman puffing on a cigar as old rent-controlled houses are demolished for shitty, expensive new ones...

The naming of this main character is still an active choice but it isn't a cutesy one. The premise here is partially based on the life of the real Jimmie Fails (he gets a "Story by" writing credit). But it makes no bones about being a fictional work. There is the eponymous play-within-the-movie which acts as an outing for the film's big lie. But what you oughta glean from the ninety minutes leading up to that moment is that it isn't about the lie. Never was. The lie is just another excuse foisted on the disenfranchised: the biggest lie of all being that this is and always was somehow their fault, their FAILURE. This lie is the real horror of gentrification: You don't deserve to live here; you're just not good enough.

I appreciated this movie on multiple levels, but its greatest flaw exists in just that: it's trying to do too much. That's being said, when it's really working, it is pretty damn brilliant. And those moments will stick with me. I could've watched four hours of gorgeous slow motion with poetic voice-over all set to the stunning, very Michael Nymanish score by Emile Mosseri, like we get just three minutes...


When it hits these grooves, its reminiscent of Malick at his most lyrical. But the denotation — even if broadcasting it in all its not bullshit glory IS important — occasionally bogged things down. As did a few of the stylistic choices, either via repetition (the endless slow zooms) or aping (the sweeping montages worked, but the more adorable Wes Anderson esque shots/sequences felt out of place).

Still, all things considered, this was far more good than bad. When it's hitting, it's in the rarified cross-section of artistic beauty and authentic realism. It outs all complicit parties without falling back on making them pure evil for the sake of pure evil. For example, the white real estate agent is bad and part of the problem, but he's also a complicated human being who can see things for what they are. In his choice to take part in this deranged system, he absorbs his own set of excuses and/or lies: "It's OK because I'm 'from here'" and "I could have called the cops." But the inconsistencies are apparent. Like when Jimmie sees two white chicks on the bus discussing, blithely, how much they hate the city 'now'. These characters felt like stereotypes and his confrontation with them felt like a trope.

Ultimately, though I wished it leaned into the artsy-fartsy stuff a little more full-on, this is definitely a strong 8 out of 10 for me, and a definite recommend.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 453B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 455 ⫸

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The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a 2019 American drama directed and produced by Joe Talbot in his directorial debut. Talbot wrote the screenplay with Rob Richert and the story with Jimmie Fails, on whose life the film is partly based. The film stars Fails, Jonathan Majors, Tichina Arnold, Rob Morgan, Mike Epps, Finn Wittrock, and Danny Glover. It was released on January 26, 2019.