Review: Blindspotting
In the famous black-and-white "Rubin's Vase" drawing, the image can either be perceived by one's brain as a vase or two faces in profile, but it cannot be seen as both at the same time. One can't understand what one cannot fully see, and this phenomenon known as blindspotting is applied to the combustible topic of race relations in the bold, ambitious, flawed, and essential, Blindspotting.
Directed by Carlos López Estrada and written by stars and real-life childhood friends Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, it's a Molotov cocktail in the guise of a hip-hop buddy comedy. Diggs plays Collin, who is three days away from finishing his yearlong probation and who works as a mover with his childhood pal Miles (Casals), with whom he shoots the breeze and engages in freestyle rap battles. It's clear from the jump that Miles is short-tempered, reckless and blind to how his actions affect Collin. Miles has no problems buying a gun in front of Collin, who is hilariously trapped in the car, his panic increasing at violating his parole as gun after gun after gun comes out.
Collin's anxious state of mind is further exacerbated when he witnesses a white police offer shoot and kill an unarmed black man. All Collin wants is to make it to the end of his parole. He's been trying to make amends with his ex-girlfriend Val (Janina Gavankar); there's obviously a lot of love there, but she's wary and, when the film flashes back to the incident that landed Collin in jail in the first place, one can understand her reluctance. Bottom line for her: Collin needs to get rid of Miles, who will either put him back in jail or get him dead. Indeed, there's a different level of white privilege at play here. Miles is a white man who has grown up as a home boy - he's appalled at the gentrification that is slowly but surely happening to his beloved Oakland - but he can be black without being black, and his failure to realise that very important difference is his blind spot.
Being black is to have a target on you at all times. It is to be guilty until proven otherwise, and even then you're never seen as entirely innocent. It's no wonder that Collin behaves like someone with PTSD, the inherent trauma is passed down from generation to generation until it's almost part of the bloodstream. There's no doubt that Miles is as ride and die as it comes, but he doesn't fully comprehend how he can be an albatross to his friend.
Blindspotting tackles its thorny and weighty themes with finesse, well aware that it doesn't have all the answers but that the important thing is to keep raising questions so that we can recognise and correct the blind spots that all of us possess.
Blindspotting
Directed by: Carlos López Estrada
Written by: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Starring: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ethan Embry, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Wayne Knight
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