Race (2016)

RACE 3.5/5 From the movie RACE, I excepted controversy; with the protagonist being a black male in 1936 facing oppression due to his "RACE" and fighting though it to win an Olympics race which was strongly swayed against him due to Hitler's Ayran supremacy. With the knowledge of when it is set, you instantly get the feeling it will be dark and hopeless. When the protagonist (Jesse Ownes) first appears on screen, the camera follows him though a rundown suburb. This portrays a negative setting in which the viewer can get some background in the character and his struggles. This can also be observed for the people he lives around, as poverty and squalor can be seen throughout the rest of this scene. The director keeps the camera on him, which creates light around him. This implies he is optimistic, changing the scene completely and making more of a hopeful scene out of a hopeless situation, a theme that continues throughout the film. Then we are taken to a different scene, which is set in the Olympics stadium with green grass and more vibrant colours, which creates a more welcoming environment for the viewer. However, same as before, it's held on a main character. This time he is noticeably more downbeat. His body language combined with the fact the camera holds onto his hand (which is crushing his hat) give evidence of this downbeat attitude. This is the main feature of this scene, it shows more difficult emotions. We then learn that he is a coach to one of the failing racers. His dissatisfaction of said racer is illustrated by his gestures and body language in this scene. Although with these small contacts between the two characters, it makes the feature film easier to follow since its keeping them so close but also juxtaposed from each other. It also makes it more believable since it pushes the diversity with the characters locations and their attitudes to the situations through lighting and position in the world. Also, considering their worth to the society's that have been portrayed, although the wealthier of the two protagonists (the coach) is having more trouble even with his better financial/ better living situation. I enjoyed the film since it tends to rely on the audio merged with lighting in quite a few scenes. A good example of this would be a scene quite early in, where the coach of jessie is watching him run for the first time whilst also being mocked by a member of the board they work with though racist comments towards jessie whilst also adding in degrading comments towards his past runners. Then it pans the jessie again who is wearing all grey and is surrounded by the vibrant colours of the course and the grass, the coach yells to jessie with an echo which pushes forward the little hope for this runner. Once he begins to run, he breaks a record for the college he is in, leaving the two coaches speechless. When jessie runs over to ask the coach if he was good, the sun hits jessies back. With this it adds him to the colourful environment leaving the characters to move to talking at a normal level which removes the echo suggesting that there is hope for jessie. In conclusion I'd recommend the movie due to the use of decorative layers and how its giving us more implications to see. I also enjoy the positive message of hope and equality portrayed throughout the film.