Brother, BBC iPlayer, Written and directed by Clement Virgo based on David Chariandy’s award winning novel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002tb7c/brother

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_(2022_film)

Brother is one of those films I know I’m going to like right from the get-go. I haven’t read the book. And I’m a bit thick. Even after the film ended I wasn’t quite sure how to place the music (hip-hop) and what part of America this acclaimed Canadian drama was set in the 1990s (Scarborough, Toronto).

My sister lives in Canada in one of those white exclusive enclaves where every black man is arrested for being a suspected black man. So it’s natural for me to think this was set in a pre-Trumpian nightmare in which the police usual casual brutality to come down on the hood. And black kids get by on swagger and running away from the law.

At the centre of Brother is a hole. We know this from the opening shots. And we know the hole is going to be Francis (Aaron Pierre) the elder brother of Michael (Lamar Johnson).

Francis tells Michael to follow him, literally step for step, as he climbs up a powerline. Bodies that get close enough to overhead-powerlines cause sparking. But it was too early in the film for both of them to become fried crisps.

But this allowed Francis and Michael to sit perch high above Scarborough and the outlying districts.

Ruth (Marsha Stephanie Blake) their Jamaican immigrant mother, working tirelessly as a nurse has no time for such nonsense. When there aren’t enough hours, Christmas was cancelled for her sons when they were younger. She expects Francis to step up and take care of Michael when she’s at work.

Francis’s job to teach Michael to walk like and man and talk like a man is made more difficult because Michael isn’t like him. He’s not charismatic like Michael. Adored by the girls.  Respected and feared by the local thugs, which is much the same thing.

Michael shares Francis’s love of music but he’s introverted.

His move on Aisha (Kiana Madeira) in the school library is tentative. He sits at the table she sits at and introduces himself.

But when Aisha goes to introduce herself, he replies, ‘I know who you are Aisha’.

Francis a watcher more that a doer. But with Aisha he can be both.

Aisha also picks up the narrative of watching and remembering and sharing memories.

Certainly, Jelly (Lovell Adams Gray), Francis’s close friend and collaborator in the hip-hop community, threw me a bit.

You’ll understand more when you put together the fractured narrative and watch the film.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6