Written, Produced and Directed by Jeymes Samuel
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED PG 13
There is always something about LaKeith Stanfield that makes me feel that he is just this far over his head, out of his depth, and quite possibly, he is just not going to make it.
There is this certain vulnerability, or innocence or the combination of guile and guilessness that feels to be a natural part of his overall essence that I somehow feel protective of him, worried about him and the predicaments he finds himself engulfed in through his characters. To refresh, remember him as the philosophical stoner Darius from television's "Atlanta" (2016-2022), who finds himself trapped in a sinister mansion in the terrifying episode "Teddy Perkins." Or further still, his doomed status as a brain transplanted victim in Writer/Director Jordan Peele's "Get Out" (2017) as well as his equally ill fated status at the conclusion of Writer/Director Boots Riley's "Sorry To Bother You" (2018).
From being submerged in inner conflict as an FBI informant infiltrating the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in Writer/Director Shaka King's "Judas and the Black Messiah" (2021) to potentially enduring a broken heart from Issa Rae in Writer/Director Stella Meghie's "The Photograph" (2020), LaKeith Stanfield's characters over and again take truly precarious risks that he may not emerge from unscathed, which makes him absolutely perfect as our conduit into the biblical satire "The Book Of Clarence" from Writer/Director/Composer Jeymes Samuel as his role as the titular Clarence runs a path adjacent to Jesus Christ himself...which should, of course, signal to you his chances for evading dire consequences.
As for the film itself, while not sent over the top by any means, it is a film that I have not been able to shake since having seen it for it is haunting in its resonance, provocations and realizations when confronting lifelong perceptions of the Christ parable, religious teachings and the existing parallels to our present day that we may not think of.
Opening in A.D. 33 Lower Jerusalem, Jeymes Samuel's "The Book Of Clarence," finds Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) and best friend Elijah (RJ Cyler) losing a chariot race against Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor), placing them both into mortal danger with loan shark Jedediah the Terrible (Eric Kofi-Abrefa) who has vowed to kill them both in 30 days unless full debts are paid.
Pondering his quandary, Clarence soon happens upon the idea of posing as a fake messiah to capitalize upon the growing fandom surrounding Jesus Christ (Nicholas Pinnock) and his twelve apostles, which includes Clarence's twin brother Thomas (also portrayed by Stanfield), with whom he shares a family conflict and estrangement.
To Clarence's surprise, his scheme--unlike all of his other schemes--begins to catch fire and soon, he is perceived as being precisely what he is not...which of course, draws the attention of the Romans, already in pursuit of Christ and anyone who proclaims themselves as being a messiah. To Clarence's even greater surprise, his scheme becomes the catalyst for deeper personal discovery and ascension, from being selfish to becoming selfless, from being personally driven to community bonding, to finding a greater understanding as to what divinity is and can be.
On paper, Jeymes Samuel's "The Book Of Clarence" could be regarded as a sort of spiritual successor to what is now considered to be the greatest Biblical satire, Director Terry Jones' "Monty Python's Life Of Brian" (1979). While Samuel does share a similar approach that is not too far removed from playwright Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (1966), what Samuel has conceived is more gently anarchistic, a slyer aesthetic that is also demonstrably sincere in its emotional stakes and core, thus grounding the proceedings with a proper pathos and social critique.
"The Book Of Clarence" possesses a streak that is playful as when Clarence gets an idea, a light bulb appears above his head and during a trip to an opium den, customers are literally floating in the air after each puff. Yet, overall, Samuel's depiction is decidedly matter of fact as he draws distinct parallels between the past and present, making for an eternal human struggle that hasn't changed terribly much in over 2000 years. The caste system and hierarchies based upon social class, race and ethnicities are in full effect as is racial profiling, Black execution at the hands of White authority leading to a power structure where the desire of those in power attempts to create an existence wholly designed to eradicate those they feel beneath themselves yet is consistently undercut by the persistence of the joy and community of Black unity.
To that end, it is through his depictions where Jeymes Samuel challenges viewer's thinking, especially as we are drowning in a time where nuance is increasingly non-existent and choices are binary. We are given a cinematic vision where Jesus Christ, all of his disciples plus the majority of the inhabitants of Lower Jerusalem are all Black people, completely clashing against the imagery of the long haired, blue eyed White Jesus, imagery which Samuel tackles in the film as well.
Clarence is the engine within this story and the conceit of the character is compelling. To have a poor Black man, one who is a bit of a scoundrel, jobless aside from drug peddling, who thieves honey wine from the Romans and who lives with his Mother (portrayed by Marianne Jean-Baptiste) instead of on his own volition as the hero in a Biblical tale might feel antithetical to some but for me, it makes the trajectory of the story carry a greater meaning...for who among us is without fault or tribulations?
Despite Clarence's often questionable to nefarious choices, notably posing as a messiah, Samuel is wise enough to showcase how that does not suggest Clarence has a lack of character, substance or virtuousness. His feud with brother Thomas stems from the forsaking of family to leave an ailing parent to follow Christ. Clarence's devotion to his Mother, friends and community is pure. He is sweetly--and dangerously--in love with Varinia (Anna Diop), the sister of Jedediah the Terrible. Yet, most of all, Clarence is an atheist.
The soul of Jeymes Samuel's "The Book Of Clarence" is one that challenges Clarence, as well as all of us in the audience, to think about what exactly God and divinity is or isn't, what it can or cannot be and is it something to find or to be attained or is it always elusive or does it exist at all. This makes for an experience I feel that anyone could fine value within regardless of what one's spiritual or religious beliefs happen to be. Which then takes us to the heart within the soul of the film: the concepts of "knowledge" and "belief," and how they conflict and intersect.
Now, according to the Oxford dictionary, "Knowledge" is defined as "facts, information and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject" while "Belief" is defined as "an acceptance that is statement is true or that something exists."
This dichotomy fuels Clarence's conflict with Thomas, and with all of us regarding our individual relationships with religion and spirituality, for how can one believe when one does not know and how can one know when one hasn't experienced what really cannot be experienced? Thomas believes yet he is firm in the knowledge of his faith. Clarence, however, is absolutely certain he knows all there is to know until his odyssey truly begins with his ruse as a false messiah and what he believes is confronted, altered and changed...entirely based upon his new knowledge.
Throughout the film, Jeymes Samuel argues that knowledge and belief are not mutually exclusive concepts but ones that are consistently aligned and therefore, symbiotic. Clarence's journey takes him upon a trajectory that runs concurrently to Jesus Christ's, even forging relationships with Barabbas the Immortal (Omar Sy), Pontius Pilate (James McAvoy), experiencing what he once thought impossible--most crucially, within himself--to climactic and tragic consequences of which we all know the story.
In the here and now, our relationships with religion and spirituality are based upon the stories we have been told and taught, a process formulating a belief system as we were not in existence at the time of Christ (if he ever existed as some question) so we are not armed with any first hand knowledge. Our beliefs may or may not transition into knowledge or better yet, a hybrid of the two, until we each have experienced life and the living experience. Clarence's journey is our own in that regard and with that in mind, God and divinity, Samuel seems to be extolling does indeed exist because we are all here in this world together...for it is within our sense of humanity that we attempt to understand what existence is within our respective places in the universe.
LaKeith Stanfield meets every moment within "The Book Of Clarence" with an unforced, naturally magnetic presence that we are willing to follow him anywhere he travels no matter how ridiculous, romantic, wrenching, miraculous and impossible his experiences are and become. And again, I felt protective of him as the story was barreling towards an obvious conclusion.
Clarence's final moments on screen, as conveyed through LaKeith Stanfield's emotive, honest performance, are a wonder. Stanfield again shows all of us that he has been through it, he has seen, he has experienced and through his sympathetic, haunted eyes and the emotionally altered breaths he elicits...
...we believe.
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