• “Judas and the Black Messiah” won two Oscars last Sunday.

  • Daniel Kaluuya was awarded, as was the song from the film.

  • It must be said that this story of an undercover agent at the heart of the Black Panthers movement is treated in a way as informative as it is committed.

Two Oscars, no less. That's what

Shaka King's

Judas and the Black Messiah

won

this Sunday night. The actor Daniel Kaluuya and the song

Fight for You

by HER were honored. The film, shown in preview on Canal + and then offered for purchase per session on Wednesday, is worth seeing for several reasons.

LaKeith Stanfield, best known for

Sorry To Bother You

, is amazing in the lead role of an offender forced to infiltrate the Black Panthers movement to escape prison.

But the voters at the Oscars preferred his partner, cited in the same category as him.

It must be said that Daniel Kaluuya (seen as a persecuted hero in

Jordan Peele's

Get Out

) is dazzling in the skin of Fred Hampton, a charismatic leader who died in 1969 at the age of 21.

However, he is not the only asset of this fascinating second feature film from the director of

Newlyweeds

(2013).

A talking title

The title of the film obviously refers to the traitor Judas.

The character of a man caught in a gear and devoured by guilt after being forced to turn against his own community.

"I didn't want to do a traditional biopic," Shaka King explains in the press kit.

A thriller about an undercover character seemed more interesting to me.

The "Messiah" mentioned in the title was the nickname J. Edagr Hoover, the boss of the FBI, gave to activists he considered dangerous.

Racism and politics

The film takes the form of a historical thriller to commemorate a little-known activist in France.

Much

like Spike Lee had done for

BlacKkKlansmann

, the director keeps the viewer on their toes to deliver an anti-racist message that is still welcome today.

Politics and suspense go hand in hand as he takes us back to the 1960s. At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is taking on an unprecedented scale, it is a good thing to look back on a painful past so that it does not happen again.

A good lesson

Fred Hampton is an endearing personality who would undoubtedly have had a prestigious political career.

"He was assassinated before we could even measure the impact he was going to have on the community," sighs Daniel Kaluuya.

We only remember the images and rhetoric used by federal agencies to terrorize people and precipitate the downfall of the Black Panther.

"

Judas and the Black Messiah

does not try to catch the audience with vinegar to give them a good history lesson.

This militant film is, above all, exciting entertainment.

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