One of the strangest movies of the year has to be The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the debut of writer and director Joe Talbot. Semi-(auto)biographical, the film tries to capture the life of one Jimmie Fails, who plays himself, as he navigates a changing world while clinging to his own identity. He and his friend Mont (a mesmerizing Jonathan Majors) spend most of their time skating and busing around San Francisco as the city undergoes drastic change. Vague themes of racial and gender identity, integrity and truth, history and future, and hopes and fears swirl around this movie, but its essence is that of romance.
I don't say it's a romantic story, though, because there is almost no story. Jimmie is in love with a house. A beautiful Victorian house nestled in a Bay area neighborhood is his beloved, and it was apparently built by his grandfather in 1946 before being inherited by Jimmie's father. As his childhood house, it holds powerful sway over Jimmie's sense of identity and purpose, which is why he is unable to stay away. Often trespassing on the current owners (white folk, who are annoyed and tired of trying to fend him off), he paints the house and trims the plants and generally tries to upkeep the exterior to his own standards. When they leave after a tragedy, Jimmie and Mont seize the opportunity to squat.
But the movie's commentary on problematic housing legalities is only a passing fancy. Its themes of gentrification and of the invasion of outsiders similarly pass from conscious intellectual curiosity into a sort of aesthetic sensibility. These themes don't concern the story so much as the feel of this movie, and the movie only really makes sense with full understanding of these elements. If there is such a thing as themes being in the mise-en-scene, this is it. Similarly, we're subjected to a curious exploration of toxic Black masculinity and the violent ways young men cling to and relate to each other. Again, while this does influence what little story we have here, it's more impressionistic than anything, leading to a climax and denouement that you don't understand so much as feel.
Which is probably why I mostly didn't care for this movie. It's undeniably beautiful, and a clear introduction to an auteur in the making who controls odd visuals, offbeat pacing, uncanny humor, and sickly sentimentality to fascinating if inaccessible effect. Due to the film's intoxicating sense of place -- there isn't a moment I don't feel where I'm meant to be, though I've never been to California -- I nevertheless felt that much humor and sadness was lost on me due to the almost masturbatory insistence on "for these people, by these people." At one point, a naked man sits on a bench next to Jimmie and the two calmly discuss the changing city. Clearly there is a joke here (naked social philosophers must be a fixture in any major city) but it's so grounded in sadness that my half-choked gasp of laughter quickly died to an almost sickened awareness of my own privilege (of what? Perhaps mental health, a supportive job, healthy masculine bonding, enough money to possess clothes?) But why? There's nothing relatable for me to feel shamed for, and yet there I sat.
I prefer, generally, something a bit more streamlined in scope and accessible in, well, every other way. Perhaps it's just one of those movies I don't "get", like An American in Paris or A Christmas Story, and that's okay. I really wanted to get it, and maybe my earnestness made the film's most accessible elements dull. A movie about a man who loves his childhood house -- even though his connection to it is tenuous and may be built on untruths -- is just not something I'm terribly interested in. (Frankly, there are many other movies about "home" I'd rather watch again.) But I hope you are, because it's lovely to look at and feel, even for a passing fancy.
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