That Begins the Story
How did I arrive here, I wonder. Because the flux in the political atmosphere is overwhelmingly tormenting that black hole of emotion, the kind that pulls the body, mind, and spirit into exhaustion. The scenarios keep circling, repeating, unraveling until the regime that punctured and bled these wounds of human tribulation finally collapses under its own weight.
And then, in the midst of that chaos, there is art. There is a theatre imagined worlds where actors and artists stand as both backdrop and pulse, where culture still dares to breathe through performance, even when politics chokes the air.
It dawned on me recently, somewhere between headlines and disturbance, what happened to Highest 2 Lowest, that megastar collaboration of Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, and A$AP Rocky. A film with the gravitational pull of icons, yet seemingly swallowed by silence.
I confess, I have not yet seen it. But I have streamed Beauty in Black and without guilt, remorse, or moral hesitation, I found myself enthralled. Maybe not moved to redemption, but undeniably intrigued.
Because here’s the truth: the bandwidth for these stories, these cinematic collisions of power, pain, and identity only reaches the few who are still willing to be disassembled and put back together by what they see. And perhaps that’s the only kind of audience art really deserves.
Culture at Its Best — and at Its Most Decapitating
When art fails to catch the wind of its time, it isn’t always because it lacks brilliance. Sometimes, it’s because culture itself has already moved on fickle, fast, hungry for what feels new, but equally cruel to what refuses to bend. That is where we find ourselves with Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest a film anchored in power, class, and the geometry of conscience and the quieter storm brewing beneath it: Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black.
Two worlds, same canvas. Both helmed by Black visionaries who, in different languages, try to dissect who we have become and who we pretend to be.
The Silence of a Giant
Highest 2 Lowest should have been thunder. Spike Lee. Denzel Washington. A$AP Rocky. That constellation alone should have lit the night sky.
Instead, the film landed like a whisper. It had pedigree, intellect, and legacy but it also had restraint. Richard Brody in The New Yorker called it “one of Lee’s most personal films, both emotionally and intellectually,” yet The Irish Times countered that “too much of Highest 2 Lowest feels knocked off in a hugely expensive hurry.” That polarity tells the story: critics found the film worth thinking about, but audiences scrolling through the noise didn’t stop long enough to feel it.
