Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.28.19
Identity and serenity are shaped, in great part, by the stability of place.
Somewhere to call home, where one can shelter from life’s trials and tribulations. Where one can relax, and be at peace.
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| Mont (Jonathan Majors, left), ubiquitous notebook in hand, worries that Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) has set his expectations too high, when it comes to his desire to care for a Victorian house that holds a strong personal attachment. |
Indie filmmaker Joe Talbot’s impressive feature debut couldn’t be better timed, arriving amid the rising tsunami of national homelessness: particularly acute in California, and at crisis levels in metropolitan regions such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. It seems exceptionally tragic in Baghdad by the Bay, where tent communities and sidewalk derelicts clash so tragically with the romantic atmosphere and storied neighborhoods of a city that has fueled dreams for generations.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a deeply moving saga of friendship, fractured families, and the devastating hunger to belong — to stillbelong — in a city that seems to have turned its back on native sons and daughters. Talbot, a fifth-generation San Franciscan, co-wrote the story with best friend Jimmie Fails, drawing heavily on the latter’s actual childhood experiences; the script received an assist from Rob Richert, who teaches filmmaking at San Quentin Prison.
The resulting narrative has a firm sense of atmosphere and “street” that feels absolutely — often painfully — authentic. Talbot also grants his characters an aura of grace and nobility, as they pursue an impossible dream with the stubborn persistence of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. The goal is pure, and eminently righteous; this justifies their struggle to a degree that touches us deeply.
And we sense, almost immediately, that the quest — and its outcome — will be heartbreaking. This is no Hollywood fairy tale.
Jimmie Fails (essentially playing himself) has long been obsessed by the ramshackle, elegant old Victorian home — complete with a distinctive, cone-shaped rooftop known as a “Witch’s Hat” — that his grandfather built long ago, in the heart of San Francisco’s Fillmore District. It was home to Jimmie’s extended family, during the vibrant post-WWII years, when the region was alive with joyously boisterous jazz clubs.
Then Jimmie’s father lost it somehow — details don’t matter — and the family fractured, pushed to various parts of the city’s outskirts. Jimmie remains haunted by the house’s hold on his soul. With best friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) acting as reluctant lookout, Jimmie frequently sneaks onto the property, to touch up some paint trim, or attempt to control the overgrown garden.
Despite the fact that the current owners — white, of course — have repeatedly chased him away.
