The Last Black Man in San Francisco

My wife and I watched this at home via Amazon Prime streaming movies. Quite different from most movies, some parts I didn't like, especially when there was lots of screaming or street arguments among the street guys. However the core of the story, involving a young black man longing to reassemble his family after earlier being evicted, is done very well.

We see on the news frequently that the high cost of housing in San Francisco continues to create problems and this story builds on that realism.

Jimmie Fails wrote and starts as himself, Jimmie Fails. This is his story, their former home in San Francisco was built in 1946 by his grandfather and he continues to visit it, even care for parts of it, even though a family now lives in it. He holds out hopes that he can get it back, but it is probably worth $4Million now. But we gradually find that his is a false memory, and his attachment to it is on shaky ground.

In an interview Fails states, "It's actually more a story about family, the fleeting nature of love and happiness, and fighting to find one's place in an evolving world. When I lost my house, which is what happens in the movie, it wasn't at all because of gentrification, it is about San Francisco changing, but that's not what we set out to make a film about."

Very interesting movie, some will like it while others might find it much ado about very little, or maybe just a slice of life of a black person in San Francisco constantly struggling to find a worthwhile life.

Beautiful cinematography and a wonderful use of music highlight this melancholy, moving film about the gentrification of San Francisco that is pushing black communities to the polluted fringes.

The film feels a hair or two shy of reality, existing in a rarefied world where visual poetry supplants gritty realism, but I very much enjoyed the vibe this film generated and was able to relax into its aesthetic. It's got two impressive performances, one by Jimmie Fails, who also co-wrote, as the main protagonist, a young black man who squats in the vacant home that formerly belonged to his family; and the other by Jonathan Majors, who plays his artistic best friend. There have been a lot of welcome and very good black-themed movies in the last year or so, and this one shares more of the elegiac tone of an "If Beale Street Could Talk" than the angry energy of a "BlacKkKlansman" or "Blindspotting."

I will say though that one revelation about this film changed my impressions of it a little bit for the worse, and I'm not sure whether or not it's fair of me. I assumed the creators of it were people of color, and that what I was getting was a film from a black perspective. But then I discovered that the director and producers are white men, and now I'm not so sure how I feel about it, mostly because I no longer know whether or not this film is authentic to the black experience. It still has good things to say either way, and it certainly doesn't traffic in the same kind of cultural appropriation as something like "Green Book" from last year, but I have to admit that I'm not sure how I feel about consuming black stories as told by white people.

It is a lovely film though, and it captures a lot of the magic that the city of San Francisco has exercised on me personally from visits there. Which makes it all the more tragic that it's becoming a city that's out of reach for most middle class Americans, let alone disenfranchised minorities.

Grade: A

An artsy movie. Very good story, script, and plot. Excellent cinematography, really shows the beauty of San Francisco. Excellent message on gentrification, homelessness, and love. Very good believable acting. The pacing was a little slow, but overall a very good movie. Overall, I'll give it an 8/10.

Beautifully shot, earnestly acted, effectively melancholy, with a plot that's pretty refreshing, featuring a handful of really strong scenes... but unfortunately as a whole the movie still manages to be quite boring to sit through.

The writing, acting, cinematography, and music made this movie an excellent watch. The writers captured the true essence of living in San Francisco, from the depths of the Tenderloin to the Uber wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood, the film portrayed a gritty and complicated city to live in, affected tremendously by gentrification and generational wealth disparity. The acting was superb from both lead actors, who showed tremendous range from scene to scene and created characters the audience connected and empathized with. If you live or plan to live in San Francisco, this is a must watch! Bravo!