“Antebellum,” the disturbing thriller in which Janelle Monáe plays a contemporary author and activist who somehow finds herself enslaved on a Confederate plantation, was headed for theaters in April. COVID-19 prevented that, and now the film will be available through video on demand platforms Friday, Sept. 18.
For Monáe — themulti-Grammy-nominated recording artistwho has performed at festivals like San Francisco’sOutside Lands Music and Arts Festivaland has built an impressive acting career with the likes of “Hidden Figures,” the last season of Amazon Prime’s “Homecoming” and “The Glorias” (out later this month) — the delay has only amplified the movie’s already urgent messages.
“We’re in a fight against fascism, against systemic racism, against white supremacy,” Monáe told The Chronicle by phone the same week that two Black Lives Matter protesters were shot and killed, allegedly by a teenage vigilante, in Kenosha, Wis. “So what this film shows is that the past is not even the past.”
The feature writing/directing debut of the socially committed advertising team Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, “Antebellum” opens with Monáe’s enslaved character, whom the cruel white masters call Eden, being serially abused along with scores of other Black captives while an occasional Civil War cannon can be heard in the distance.
Forty minutes in, the actress awakens in a luxurious modern apartment as Dr. Veronica Henley, an Ivy League and HBCU-degreed best-selling writer who takes down racists on TV. She’s got a wonderful husband and an adorable little girl, private hot yoga classes and a few have-it-all superwoman anxieties, but life is undeniably good. Until, that is, Veronica heads to New Orleans to promote her latest book, “Shedding the Coping Persona,” with a lecture advocating “liberation over assimilation” to a receptive audience of women of color.
Throw in a fun night out in the French Quarter with Veronica’s two best friends (Gabourey Sidibe and Lily Cowles), and soon you see Monáe lean into a multifaceted acting challenge that she impressively pulls off. A historically informed approach did the trick.
“I’m here not because I asked to be, but because my ancestors were forced to live in America,” said Monáe, who grew up in the Quindaro district of Kansas City, Kan., a onetime abolitionist stronghold. “They were stolen from their homes and shipped over here and enslaved. So I had a responsibility to honor my ancestors as authentically as possible. I also felt a responsibility to honor the women who have to carry the burden to deconstruct white systemic racism and white supremacy.”
While Veronica and her pals can confront or shrug off microaggressions, Eden and the other captives are expected to silently endure flogging, branding, rape and murder. Louisiana’s Evergreen Plantation was the setting for the latter. A National Historic Landmark, the 230-year-old property still produces sugarcane and has preserved 22 slave quarters in their original positions (the production built its own cabins nearby).
“Yeah, it wasn’t fun,” Monáe said of filming at the plantation. “There’s nothing fun about stepping on soil that was owned by the people who enslaved your ancestors. There’s nothing exciting about thinking about my ancestors working and being beaten and killed and having violating acts against them.
“The only thing that got me through every day was my ancestors and thinking about how that was actually their real life. I’m in a movie, and I get to leave and go to my hotel. They didn’t have that opportunity.”
Monáe did take advantage of one positive opportunity during production, though. As famous for her fashion sense as for her music, acting and activism, she persuaded costume designer Mary Zophres to dress Veronica’s squad in clothing and accessories from such international Black designers as Ozwald Boateng and Folake Kuye Huntoon and the Africa-made handbag company Zaaf.
“If we are doing a story that’s centered around Black women, we should highlight Black designers,” Monáe said. “I’m all about putting money in the pockets of our community and putting global awareness on all of the incredible, creative designers that are Black. And Veronica, the character, would support that.”
As for the movie’s style, the filmmakers have noted that many traditional horror movie techniques were applied to the presentation of slavery and its real horrors in “Antebellum.” There’s also been significant speculation in the literary and science fiction communities that the movie borrows heavily from the late author Octavia E. Butler’s novel “Kindred.” (That should recede once “Antebellum” gets widely seen, but then some may wonder why M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t have a creative credit.)
Asked how one should write about “Antebellum” without giving big secrets away, Monáe characteristically addressed the film’s formal aspects from a sociopolitical perspective.
“We are in a fight for our lives right now,” she said. “I know you know about the two protesters that were murdered, I know you know about what happened to Jacob Blake, what happened to Sandra Bland, and what happened to so many Black women who are silenced and had violence against them. If that’s not horror enough for anybody watching this, I just don’t know what to say.
“That is horror to me in every sense of the word because it’s actually happening right now. So I think that the best thing to do is really connect how this film is of the time, is of the past and it will inform our future if we don’t act now. All of us should feel a responsibility to keep the conversation going. You can’t really have a full conversation about present-day America without addressing this country’s past and African American history. So what I would want to see writers writing about is how we can’t fumble this moment.”
“Antebellum”(R) is available on major video on demand platforms starting Friday, Sept. 18.