Review of Harriet (2019) by Mauro_Lanari — 03 Jul 2020

(Mauro Lanari).

Not knowing Harriet Tubman's story at all, I won't touch the thorny point of the veracity or not of this biopic. Additional considerations:

1) Is the protagonist a woman? Checked. 2) Is the female protagonist black? Checked 3)(Mauro Lanari).

Not knowing Harriet Tubman's story at all, I won't touch the thorny point of the veracity or not of this biopic. Additional considerations:

1) Is the protagonist a woman? Checked.

2) Is the female protagonist black? Checked.

3) Does she help herself and others on her own instead of resorting to a "white savior"? Checked.

4) Is the style terribly televisiony even in the most compelling moments on paper? Checked.

5) Harriet was a mystic and decided by trusting the visions she received. God? Today one would prefer to talk about channeling, guiding spirit, guardian angel, etc. Always better than Malick's last repulsive film that already from the first shot shows the married couple immersed in an Edenic environment while their hands in the foreground flaunt the wedding rings. Anyway, Harriet is named the new "Moses": perhaps someone has not yet understood (for example Michael Walzer in "Exodus and Revolution", 1985) that according to the Bible Moses died in Sinai together with all the Hebrews who had escaped from Egypt with him, while only who was born in the desert crossed the Jordan River and entered the so-called "promised land". That is to say that the intersection between those who had lived the Egyptian experience and those who crossed "The River" is ∅ (= empty set). Yet still now such a "Pesach" is celebrated as an indispensable event in the historical process of salvation.