Black | Film review - Hip-hop Romeo and Juliet in the Brussels banlieues

Black Martha Canga Antonio boubakr Bensaïhi

(Image credit: © Vertigo Films)

Black Martha Canga Antonio Aboubakr Bensaïhi

Star-crossed young love and brutal gang violence

A hip-hop Romeo and Juliet set amid Brussels’ gang-plagued immigrant communities, gritty Belgian drama Black doesn’t pull any punches. Its star-crossed young lovers - 16-year-old Moroccan boy Marwan (Aboubakr Bensaïhi) and 15-year-old Congolese girl Mavela (Martha Canga Antonio) – meet un-cute in a police precinct, both under arrest. For all their cheeky rapport, it’s clear from the start that the liaison won’t end well.

Things do indeed get grim, and an unflinching scene of gang rape in a church is particularly gruelling, but there’s a vibrant urgency to the filmmaking, which makes it easy to see why Hollywood has signed young directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah to make Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop 4.

Certificate 18. Runtime 94 mins. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Black debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on Wednesday 3 May. Available on Digital Download from Under the Milky Way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZh33h7eBBU

CATEGORIES

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.