The discredited director one-time smash The Birth of a Nation returns in grubby, flagrant style with this story of a fabulous janitor fighting back against
police brutality
If there exists a cursed cinema at the Venice film festival, it is surely the Sala Casino, the smallest theatre on site, with its big steel door and its exposed white wall and a queuing system that leaves its guests broiling for an hour in the afternoon sun. It was here, two years ago, that they screened the latest James Toback, just weeks before the guillotine came down. And it is here, this year, where they play the new film from Nate Parker. The Sala Casino is like the roach motel. The pictures check in but they may not check out.
It’s a far cry from the red carpet that was rolled out for Parker’s 2016 debut, The Birth of a Nation, which screened at Sundance and was promptly snapped up by Fox Searchlight for a record-breaking sum. Big things were predicted for the actor-director. But the resurfacing of a 1999 college rape trial (in which he was eventually acquitted), together with his own defiant public stance on the issue made Parker a pariah. Now he’s playing in the graveyard, forlornly reaching for the stars.