Descendant (2022)

DESCENDANT 

Streaming now on Netflix

Directed by Margaret Brown, whom directed The Great Silence about the Deepwater Horizon and the falllout of that disaster. Here Brown shows another tragic disaster this time focusing on the long known history of a sunken slave ship off the coast of Mobile, Alabama called the Clotilda.

The film is about the attempts to find the remains of a slave ship, supposedly set on fire by slave masters as the transportation of slaves from one country to another had been abolished in 1805 but slavery was still occurring within the United States up to the Civil War

Brown directs with such assuredness and command of the material and resources at her disposal helped by folklorist Kern Jackson, Professor at the University of South Alabama.

The film delicately weaves the narrative about how important it is for the direct descendants of the people who were brought to the Americas from Africa, eventually settling in Africatown, to know the truth about their story, which has been passed down from generation to generation as a story of resilience and survival, providing hope to the generations that follow. This is indicative of the African-American experience claiming their story and their freedom may have come at a price, but their history remains theirs alone.

Featuring readings from Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, a memoir from a survivor of the ship, read by people who ferment within the narrative. Brown makes sure that the message of legacy and folklore is passed down from person to person, this coupled with VHS recordings of survivors harkens back to a by-gone era. 

Yet there is hope amidst the systemic racism pervaded upon the survivors by the Timothy Meaher family and their surviving family from attempting to wrong foot historians and divers from the true location of the wreckage, to the allowing of huge industrial plants to be built in and around Africatown making the residents unfortunately victims of pollution and environmental danger by way of lead and mills being ever present since their creation, not to mention the destruction to the surrounding water of the gulf region.

From these troubles and the stigmatism of reparations by way a means of accountability to some souls, the message of rising up and reclaiming the narrative is indicative by the end; the ability to curate the story in a new found Heritage house bodes well for the future. 

A dark chapter in the slave history of America is finally rising up from the depths, providing hope to those legacies now and for those descendants now. This powerful tale of storytelling has made this film a frontrunner for the Best Documentary Feature at next years Academy Awards, and it is hard to argue.

DESCENDANT is available to stream now on Netflix.