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"We had the best organization a black man's ever had. Niggers ruined it."

-- Malcolm X (Denzel Washington)

Malcolm X is considered to be one of history's most influential and controversial public speakers concerned with the dangers of racism in our society.

Director Spike Lee's primary task in the film (based on Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X) is to educate the generations so that they are able to make up their own mind about the man, beyond the common assumptions. Viewers are encouraged to read the book as well, but covered here is the extremity of some of Malcolm's older ideas, his advocation of pride and self-determination within the African-American community, and the vicious lies spread about him by the media during his powerful reign.

Lee deals with both the admirations and detractions of the black human rights activist, tracking his life from childhood, imprisonment after burglary, conversation to Islam, to his eventual assassination by the very people he seeked to inspire. We see Malcolm X's audience growing and declining as his life is filled with praise and controversy from the various people in the streets, Islamic leaders and mainstream journalists.

It's a very long film (three hours plus), and the early scenes concerned with "Malcolm Little" and his parents do drag a little bit, but things really get going when we see him sentenced to eight years in county jail. From here, we see the character's story of religious conversion, which is handled impeccably by Lee. Visually and dramatically fascinating, each scene deals with one man's spiritual and political journey, whose self-development makes him rise up and become one of most influential heroes to African-Americans on the streets.

Denzel Washington is at the centre of it all, giving one of his greatest performances. Particularly for all those that are too young to have lived through the era of Malcolm X's reign, Washington manages to dramatize the various phases in the man's life-long transformation, making him seem like a character we can sympathise with, despite some of his radical assertions. Washington is also assisted by an excellent ensemble of performers, including Angela Bassett as Malcolm's wife, Lonette McKee as his forceful mother, Spike Lee as his best friend Shorty, and Al Freeman as the fateful Elijah Muhammad.

The film's cinematography, by Lee's long-time collaborator Ernest Dickerson, is another of the film's strong points. Particularly notable is how Dickerson's camera vividly captures the symbolic nature of Malcolm's pilgrimage at the Mecca. We see a character becoming isolated after distancing himself from radical Muslim thinking, though achieving a sense of unity after he discovers Islam can develop peace between everyone, regardless of skin colour. The viewer can really feel absorbed by this sense of spiritual and knowledgeable togetherness.

Admittedly, the overall quality of this movie is near-perfect.
Lee was obviously a fan of Malcolm, but the film succeeds in being seemingly unbiased for the majority of its running time. It has been put together with proper perspective of Malcolm X's radicalism and intelligence, providing much more than one simple, singular impression of the man.

My personal view is that Malcolm X was once a racist in his generalisations of whites and advocating the complete separation of African Americans, during the years that he represented the Nation of Islam as a speaker. But I also believe his philosophy changed after he left the Nation of Islam and returned to the U.S. from Mecca: He then began to articulate his independent views, stating that he judged people by their conscious behaviour, and not the colour of their skin (see the famous speech 'I am not a Racist').

Whatever your opinion of the man, though, the film provides a fascinating look at race pride, self-reliance and religious fundamentalism, and seeks to inspire everyone.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2010.