The Last Black Man in San Francisco - Review

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Filmmaker Joe Talbot makes his debut feature film in “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” which he co-wrote and directed and won the Best Director prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

The essential plot of this small myopic slice of life film takes place in contemporary San Francisco (obviously) where the principle characters are  “Jimmie Falls” (played by Jimmie Falls) and his best friend  “Montgomery Allen” aka “Mont” (played by Jonathan Majors) and Jimmie’ grandfather “Grandpa Allen” (played by Danny Glover). “Jimmie and Mont” are decent young men, who are not in any trouble and take great pains to avoid it as they are both street smart and very book smart. The two men even share the same appreciations for a lot of things including wanting some measure of the American Dream that they uniquely carve out for themselves, that they can uniquely claim as their own

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One day while they’re waiting to catch the city bus to work, they began to engage in conversation reflecting on all of the social economic changes that has occurred since they were kids. While on their skateboards passing through the affluent Fillmore District of the city the two men come upon a classic Victorian house that Jimmie grew up in that he says was built by his grandfather in 1946. They discover the home is currently occupied by an older white couple and “Jimmie” begins to and often laments to “Mont” about how the couple seemingly doesn't take good care of the house as he remembered it.

One day “Jimmie” see’s the couple moving out and immediately gets the idea to buy it. But he finds out it’s not up for sale because it is in a major legal dispute between family members about who actually owns it outright. Undaunted “Jimmie” makes seemingly the rash and illogical decision by taking up residence in the home by moving all of his furniture in. His decision launches him and “Mont” on an unusual odyssey that connects them both to their treasured past, that also tests their friendship and overall their sense of actually belonging in this place. A place they believe they have the right to call their home.

REVIEW: Running 2 hours even, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” is singular the most gorgeous film I have seen in all of 2019. The lighting and colors are rich and vibrant, with scenes of the SF city scape and vistas, trademark rolling streets – street cars and its morning rolling fog made the entire film something truly captivating to look at. So much so there were several instances while watching the film I became so transfixed and mesmerized by its sheer beauty I had to summarily hit the rewind to hear the dialogue I just missed.

In addition to its physical look the writing was genuinely fresh, new, poetic and picturesque both in its tone and delivery. The wealth of generous exchanges between the principle characters felt less like some recitation of pedestrian dialogue and more like real people taking exceptional great pride in having something meaningful to say when they spoke.

Actually, you can say very smart people, who at every turn seemingly communicated with one another as if it was some type of soulful catharsis to do so. To converse as if every utterance had their lives depending on them saying words in just the right way. Personal thoughts devoid of clichés and yet still filled with those universal themes of emotions of genuine depth, intimacy and sincerity. Artful expressions meant to convey some deeper aspects of a hidden part of their humanity.

But for all of the positive aesthetic virtues this film projects and for all of the interesting and thoughtful interplay between “Jimmie and Mont” who never try to be “in the hood” slick or cool, and for all of the well intentions by the Director and actors to only ask you to just listen to them, to observe them and to keep an open mind about them, “TLBMINSF” while solid comes off from my perspective as a flat gourmet cup of cinematic tea.

It’s far from being unwatchable, but it will never excite or thrill you and it will certainly not give you any redeeming greater meaning of life message for you to hold onto. And while its pace is methodically easy to follow its never an over revelatory story about who any of these principle characters ever were nor inside the present storyline itself. For me the two friends seemed too vacuous and empty with way too many unexplainable moments of deflation and rejoicing and rising and sighing that seemly never connected to anything of than a depressing story about two good men.

Ultimately, I found the film a bit too pretentious, too manipulative, and way too self-important to really take seriously or ever care about “Jimmie and Mont” in the end. Their initial decision to take a home that was not theirs was clearly meant to invoke some admiration in that Don Quixote-esque way………..meaning “someone who is determined to change what was a great wrong, but who does it in a way that seems not practical”. But their naïve actions were way too much of an intellectual hurdle for this viewer to ever overcome that decision in any empathetic way no matter how convincing their arguments were as modern-day squatters rights to a $4M home in SF. It was just never convincing enough for me really believe.

Still with several scenes that were impressive and interesting, I found “TLBMISF” not so much as a compelling standalone film, but more of an new imaginative amalgamation piece of art in the same way if someone took Jacob Lawrence paintings and presented them in a slideshow, bringing them to life with the words of Maya Angelou.

2.75 Stars