Movies

‘The Woman King’ poses the conundrum of making a great action movie about exceptional killers

September 25, 2022

Every action movie worth watching after leaving the theater asks the audience to think but not too much, to appreciate the righteousness of the hero without questioning the awkward parts of the story that may hold him back from the encourage. We’re reminded that these are power fantasies, even those based on real events – stories that are chosen by producers and studios for their potential as inspirational spectacles.

Even taking all of that into consideration, “The Woman King” was never destined for an easy, non-controversial reception. Although director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Old Guard”) drew inspiration from “Gladiator” and “Braveheart” (influences that play to incredible effect in the film’s massive, fast-paced fight sequences), it’s an epic set in a time and place most Americans know little about – a 19th-century West African kingdom of Dahomey.

The dwarf by Viola Davis leads a unit of female warriors known as Agojie, flanked in battle by her trusted officers Izogie (Lashana Lynch) and Amenza (Sheila Atim). Nanisca and her fighters are so fearsome that the civilians of the kingdom she serves are forbidden to look directly at them as they parade. And the king she serves, Ghezo (John Boyega), puts her advice on par with that of her male advisers – it’s just one of the many ways the film demonstrates Ghezo’s enlightened view on governance.

Ghezo has many wives, but he also reveres Nanisca and the Agojie, women who pledge loyalty to one another while taking a vow of celibacy in exchange for training to become expert killers in the name of protecting their people.

According to history, Dahomey did not need protection from external threats so much as the reverse. They built their kingdom’s massive wealth by capturing and selling fellow humans long after the British declared the slave trade illegal.

“The Woman King” makes no secret of Dahomey’s role in fueling chattel slavery, as many critics and fans have explained. It rearranges and polishes the truth to dispel our doubts about the heroism of its protagonists.

Viola Davis and Thuso Mbedu star in “The Woman King” (Sony Pictures/Ilze Kitshoff)

Nanisca, Izogie and Amenza urge Ghezo to stop selling prisoners to Portuguese slaves who trade with them – even the people they capture to their (sexist, lustful) rival the Oyo. Having seen the cost of war and contributed to this suffering, she believes that Dahomey can maintain its wealth by growing and marketing palm oil in the surrounding territories.

Also in the film, Nanisca and her sisters have principles on the battlefield. During a raid on a village they suspect of having taken some of its inhabitants prisoner, they chop off most of the men they find. However, when they come across a house full of cowering girls and women, they allow them to live. Those they take captive have the option of joining them or dying. Wait, no. . . this is probably what would have happened in reality. In “The Woman King”, they are allowed to leave in peace, unmolested.

If you’re a college student writing an essay on Dahomey, copying the plot from Dana Stevens’ screenplay should score you a fail.

I could go on, but honestly, what is stated above is enough to make my point: if you’re a college student writing an essay on Dahomey, copy the plot from Dana Stevens’ screenplay (written from a story by actress Maria Bello, who originated the idea) should earn you a failing grade.

But if you’re someone who enjoys action movies that use “real life events” as an entry into a deeper narrative about surviving trauma, challenging misogyny, and overcoming personal torment in the face, and all the kicks in the ass, then “The Woman King” is a masterpiece.

Critics love it. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an A+, making it one of only two movies to achieve that rating so far in 2022. The other is “Top Gun: Maverick.”

But this record-breaking anthem to the military — and to Tom Cruise — didn’t leave me impressed with his performance. Davis did, and so did Thuso Mbedu’s journey as Nawi, a deported young woman who joins the Agojie after her parents cast her at the king’s mercy. Nawi is the replacement for every woman who has been told she is difficult or unruly; her mother and father deliver her to the palace because she refuses to marry. (But then, the man her parents chose for her is old, arrogant, and slaps her moments after they meet. What’s not to hate?)

The female king Viola Davis and John Boyega star in “The Woman King” (Sony Pictures/Ilze Kitshoff)It’s subplots that set “The Woman King” apart from most mindless action drowned in all the attention to factual reworking. Too bad, because that’s also why moviegoers like me will make repeated pilgrimages to theaters to support it.

Even though Dahomey was, in fact, “the blade of freedom”, Nanisca proclaims that her people are in a rousing speech before battle, the radical sight of women defeating foolish men in battle is reason enough for racists and right-wing sexists and misogynistic men of color to team up to slander everyone involved.

Now consider that “The Woman King” features dark-skinned black women in the respected role of elite warriors, an image that hasn’t been seen on screen en masse in . . . already.

Consider that “The Woman King” features dark-skinned black women in the respected role of elite warriors, an image that was not seen on screen en masse in . . . already.

And yet, the meaning of the rewrite of “The Woman King” differs from that of other historical epics. “300”, for example, casts the Spartans as defenders of freedom while portraying the Persians as monstrous carcasses. It also leaves out the part about the Spartan coming-of-age ritual of killing a human slave.

Almost any Mel Gibson movie that claims to be based on the story would have the pundits screaming. None of these movies feature historical figures or cultures that have a direct connection to a societal blight that millions of people want to pretend never existed, wasn’t as bad as it was or wasn’t. has no bearing on America’s structural inequality.

And that’s the main concern Nikole Hannah Jones, creator of “The 1619 Project,” expressed in an August Tweeter. “It will be interesting to see how a film that seems to glorify Dahomey’s all-female military unit deals with the fact that this kingdom derives its wealth from the capture of Africans for the transatlantic slave trade,” Jones wrote.

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This story shouldn’t deny what Prince-Bythewood, David and the cast have achieved here. “The Woman King” proves that bringing underexplored stories from African culture to the big screen can be lucrative. (The film exceeded its modest opening-weekend box office expectations, earning $19 million.) And if Hollywood wants epic stories to fit, the continent has plenty to offer.

The industry already knows: after all, the Agojie inspired the Dora Milaje, T’Challa’s royal guard in “Black Panther,” but only when it comes to their combat prowess. (In fact, the box office success of 2018’s “Black Panther” led Sony’s TriStar Pictures to greenlight “The Woman King.”) ‘story behind the artistic inspiration, but those who do will yet discover. . . history, in all its controversy and disorder.

The question therefore becomes whether it is possible to enjoy “true event-based” fiction featuring characters scrubbed to be better symbols than they were in reality – and whether we can hold the stark truth of who these people were alongside the wish fulfillment of who we want them to symbolize. I believe we can do both, appreciating the doors that the success of “The Woman King” can open to give future filmmakers a chance to tell more stories like this and do it even better.

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