(MA) ***

I KINDA regret that after finishing high school, I mislaid the copy of “Bradley’s Arnold” that was the Latin textbook for four years of studying a language that’s now not spoken, as far as I am aware, anywhere beyond the Vatican and its worldwide branch offices.

There’s not too many movies for which the title comes straight from Latin – “before the war”. Which war? The war that tore the US apart when the Confederate states decided to secede from the Union and developed into a much wider ambit that resulted in the abolition of slavery, emancipation of the slave population and the genesis of a racial prejudice that has blighted the land of the free and the home of the brave well beyond those 13 states, both morally and economically.

What sort of movie is it? It’s a fantasy based on time travel, a theme as improbable as that of too many movies with extraterrestrial origins. But its origin has enough recorded history to, if not validate, then at least respect our credibility. 

Its joint authors and directors are Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz. Apparently, the seed for this one, the pair’s first collaboration, was a nightmare of Bush’s. I found it entertaining, a response that sci-fi movies don’t usually get from me. 

It starts on a Louisiana cotton plantation. A cart-load of new slaves has just been delivered. One of them is an attractive young woman who’s refusing to say her name to Confederate army captain Jasper (Jack Huston). Such insubordination demands punishment, in this case the application of a red-hot branding iron. 

Dramatic, historical and environmental liberties have been taken with the film’s plantation passages. After a while, the scene shifts to 21st century US where psychologist Veronica (Janelle Monáe) and her family are waking up. It’s Veronica’s big day. She’s going to collect two chums to accompany her at the launch of her new book while hubby minds the child. 

Party’s over. Veronica gets into a cab to go home. But where she finishes up is back on the plantation nearly a century and a half earlier. And she’s in dire trouble.

A strong current of vivid, even wild, imagination underpins “Antebellum”. That beats interplanetary movies. One wonders whether Bush and Renz will have another go.

Side bar: Playing one of Veronica’s chums at the book launch is Gabourey Sidibe who was nominated for an Oscar in her first film, “Precious”. Just thought you might like to remember her.

At Palace Electric