40 Years of Racial Tension
Review of Babylon at Northwest Film Forum.
Written by TeenTix Newsroom Writer Leuel Bekele and edited by Teen Editor Tova Gaster.
It’s 2020, and while it’s certain that things are changing, many things have remained the same. Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to see Babylon at the Northwest Film Forum, a nonprofit film and arts center whose main purpose is to incite public dialogue and action through cinematic experiences. It’s been 40 years since this film was made, but that’s also how long it took for it to be officially released in the United States. Babylon had its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival in 1980.
Babylon is a thematically timeless film that tells it like it is. It follows Blue (Brinsley Forde), a member of the Jamaican diaspora in Brixton, South London, during the early ‘80s. Over the course of the film, he faces the harsh reality of bigotry, police brutality, and the struggles of poverty. Behind the microphone is where he finds his peace. Blue and his friends are into dancehall, a genre that’s rooted in reggae, the distinction being dancehall’s digital instrumentation and faster tempo. The ensemble prepare for a dub battle, a clash of sound and lyrics, similar to that of rap battles of Bronx, New York during the same time period.