
A 15-year-old girl in a black gang in Brussels must choose between loyalty and love when she falls for a Moroccan boy from a rival gang. The city of Brussels, plagued by high rates of youth unemployment, is home to nearly forty street gangs, and the number of young people drawn into the city's gang culture increases each year. It's in this criminal milieu that directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah set Black, a pulse-pounding contemporary take on a Shakespearean tragedy... (Full plot summary below)
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A 15-year-old girl in a black gang in Brussels must choose between loyalty and love when she falls for a Moroccan boy from a rival gang. The city of Brussels, plagued by high rates of youth unemployment, is home to nearly forty street gangs, and the number of young people drawn into the city's gang culture increases each year. It's in this criminal milieu that directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah set Black, a pulse-pounding contemporary take on a Shakespearean tragedy. Worlds collide when Mavela (Martha Canga Antonio), a teenage girl with ties to Brussels' Black Bronx gang, meets Marwan (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a member of a rival Moroccan gang, at a police station. Keenly aware of the consequences of getting involved with someone from another gang, they at first resist their attraction to one another, but they can only resist for so long. Just when they've started to imagine a different life for themselves, a terrifying incident reminds Mavela where she belongs - and, more precisely, to whom. In order to break free, Mavela and Marwan will have to betray the very loyalties on which their gangs are founded. And they know what lies ahead for them if they don't. El Arbi and Fallah's film moves forward at an electrifying pace, with furious energy and a gritty realism reminiscent of epic gangster films like City of God and Goodfellas. Ricocheting from moments of extreme tenderness to scenes of extreme violence, and enhanced by the raw performances of its young leads, Black is a full-on, no-holds-barred experience that will resonate long after you've left the cinema.
Leave your thoughts about Black.
| The Film StageJared MobarakWith blaring hip-hop and a stylistically visual flair, Black holds its own with anything coming out of Hollywood with similar subject matter. |
| Irish TimesTara BradyBlack is energetic, visceral and savagely topical. |
| Radio TimesDavid ParkinsonThe potency of this depiction, with its powder-keg tensions, starts with an unflinching approach behind the camera. |
| FlavorwireJason BaileyThe filmmaking is aesthetically sublime, but that's about all it's got going, and by its climax, you're just waiting for them to check the double-murder boxes. |
| CineVueMatthew AndersonBlack is a visually and stylistically arresting endeavour, Canga Antonio's performance stands out and its handling of sensitive current affairs is a brave move. |
| Total FilmKevin HarleyBlack initially bursts with vim: powerhouse scoring, snappy dialogue. |
| GuardianLeslie FelperinThere's a lot to admire, from the honesty about the brutality of gang culture, its pungent sense of place and the vitality of its young cast. |
| Observer (UK)Wendy IdeThere is much to recommend this picture, not least the nervy camerawork and a pair of knockout performances from Martha Canga Antonio and Aboubakr Bensaihi as young lovers from opposite sides of a gang war. |
| Little White LiesDavid JenkinsEl Arbi and Fallah will be back, and probably with something stronger than this. |
| Flick FilosopherMaryAnn JohansonA facile riff on Romeo & Juliet amongst Brussels gangs. Banal, clichéd, and treats its teenage-girl protagonist in a spectacularly disgusting way. |