Review: the lean grandeur of A Thousand and One
There are some faces that, once they’ve been seen on a screen, become indelible totems of cinema.
Historically, this is a quality that’s be ascribed to white faces — in particular, those of white women: how easy it is for a student of film history to recall Renée Falconetti’s anguished ecstasy in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Garbo’s stoic resignation in Queen Christina, Ingrid Bergman’s fluttering wistfulness in Casablanca (“Play it once, Sam — for old times’ sake?”), or Jean Seberg’s vacant despair in Breathless. All rendered monumental via a tight, unsparing closeup.
It’s a privilege that has not often been afforded to Black women. Yet in A Thousand and One, a millennium-traversing family drama written and directed by A.V. Rockwell in her feature debut, we get to witness Teyana Taylor rise up with a face that might carry through the ages.
When we first glimpse Ms. Taylor, it is as Inez — a misdirected and lordly would-be-beautician who’s serving a stint at Rikers Island in New York City. She’s soon released, returning to her Brooklyn stomping grounds where, armed in a scarlet crop top and faded jeans, she hounds old acquaintances and passersby for gigs styling hair. She slinks along the sidewalks of Fort Greene as if they were rolled out just for her. Squinting from the heat even as she lingers in the shade, Inez resembles a subject from a painting by Kadir Nelson: brow furrowed, skin glistening from dewy sweat… her lush red lips, gold crescent earrings and jet black hair spell a Queen of the Streets whose very presence rails against the upper floors of terracotta brownstones as they loom toward azure blue skies.
On the day she returns, while doing a friend’s hair, Inez spots a young boy (played by the darling Aaron Kingsley Adetola) across the street. She hurries up to him as he slurps on a freezie with several other kids.
“Terry,” she calls out. The boy barely looks at her. “Just let me see your eyes so I know you’re not mad at me.”
It is instantly clear that Inez is asking more from this boy — on the spot, out of nowhere — than is fair. Their relationship isn’t clear, but she speaks to him as his mother. An absent parent pledging to make good. (“I’m keeping out of trouble this time.”) We leave this scene with a doubtful impression; unkind though it may be to think so, Inez does not come across as the most intentional or consistent of people. What has she done, or been accused of doing, that landed her in Rikers? Is she really in a position to promise this boy anything?
But beyond her track record, beyond her promise, there is a keen intelligence burning beneath the surface of Inez’s and Ms. Taylor’s discerning, or even woeful gaze. A Thousand and One is the first great movie of the year, and this is all to do with Ms. Rockwell’s unmoving devotion to her actors’ eyes, as well as to the fierce, desperate emotions for which they speak.
Refreshing in its romantic yet unsentimental humanity, this is a movie that eschews the aspirational optimism of rags-to-riches tales like Slumdog Millionaire or The Pursuit of Happyness. Instead, Rockwell favors political commentary (audio of Rudy Giuliani rapping on broken windows theory is used as interludes throughout the film) and the harsh realities known by people who come from nothing only to remain in nothing. The sacrifices subsequently made by Inez and her flighty boyfriend, Lucky (played with weary humility by Will Catlett), result in neither immediate nor eventual bounty; they result in a better future for their son.
Such an insight can only be gleaned from watching this family over time, and, at times, it feels like Ms. Rockwell is biting off more than she can chew: for its first forty-five minutes, A Thousand and One is the story of a single mother fighting to raise her six-year-old son. But eventually, their story stretches past Terry’s childhood into adolescence (where he’s portrayed by the touchingly baleful Aven Courtney), and again into early adulthood (a final, electric treatment by the electric Josiah Cross). It’s to her credit that Rockwell gives us good reason to stay invested, illuminating tender and heartrending passages that elevate her work to a kind of makeshift sublimity.
One wishes that a story of this scale had the financial backing of, say, The Godfather, or Giant. It is a true family saga, an epic with ninety minutes of runtime shaved off. I’d love to see Ms. Rockwell tackle a longer narrative format in her next project — a miniseries of Go Tell It On the Mountain, perhaps? Or Song of Solomon? Or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
As it happens, A Thousand and One must resort to resourcefulness over resources. The result is a kind of lean grandeur that positions its director as a force to be reckoned with, and that elevates its cast into a stratum of true cinematic glory. Everyone involved in this movie ought to have an auspicious career; it’s all up there on the screen, plain as day.
It is something beyond doubt. Like a name, or an address.
