Wakanda Foreverthe second film dedicated to Black Panther after the worldwide success with audiences and critics of the first, released in 2018, is a bet won. This does not mean that we are facing a cinematic work worthy of praise, but that among the Marvel titles this is one of the most appreciable.
The disappearance of the actor at just 43 years of age Chadwick Boseman, who played the protagonist, in addition to shocking millions of fans, constituted a problematic narrative not just in the Marvelian universe. Among the various hypothetical ways to continue the saga, that of replacing the interpreter has always been out of the question: impossible since Boseman had become, in his own way, the face of the ransom for the African American population, a man-symbol of rather complex political and cultural importance.
The choice therefore to merge cinematographic tale and reality appeared to be the most sensible: Chadwick Boseman is dead and, like him, King T’Challa. Incorporating the tragedy of a man’s demise into the plot, a tribute to him heartfelt and noble homagein which the grief felt in the real dimension and that manifested in the fiction on the screen are mirrored in each other and have a single echo.
The film features opening credits entirely dedicated to the deceased, followed by a funeral sequence in which the tribal ritual tradition blends with technological futurism and timeless spirituality.
Princess Shuri (Letizia Wright) is called to take on the responsibilities of her own lineage: from a hi-tech genius locked in the laboratory to creating the armor of vibranium and churning out other miracles, she will now have to work alongside her mother, Queen Ramonda (a splendid Angela Bassett) on the political chessboard. Wakanda, the fictional African super-nation of which they are rulers, is rich, powerful and technologically advanced, as well as a sort of enlightened guide to the rest of the world, but many are waiting for a moment of weakness in this city. state. One year after the death of Black Panther, the various world powers show themselves to be more and more intrusive and willing to do anything to obtain the mineral resources he defended in life.
That there is no time to mourn your own further monarch, son and brother it becomes evident when a further threat arises, constituted by the mutant Namor (Tenoch Huerta), at the head of the underwater civilization of Talocan for centuries.
Armed with Shakespearean gravitas and of the emotional involvement deriving from the universal value of the themes dealt with, “Wakanda Forever” crosses the boundary of Afrofuturism and goes beyond the feeling of black pride. The work, which sees Ryan Coogler (“Creed”) behind the camera and Letitia Wright as the new heroine at center stage, is first of all a profound reflection on death and on the spiritual inheritance.
Route from painful emotions from beginning to end, or for the majestic duration of almost three hours, the film gives a sensible development to a story that seemed compromised and consecrates the human being’s need-duty to move forward overcoming pain. Mourning is a need that can only be satisfied through a interior journey sufferedwhich configures as a true antagonist in “Wakanda Forever” not so much the character of the villain but more, now fate, now the traumas inherent in existence.
In the narrative the sentimental dimension takes over that action and, although the central part of the story is more cumbersome than incisive, the opening words and the ending are certainly touching.
“Wakanda Forever” is several things at once: a sumptuous requiem, an intense female Bildungsroman and the involuntary representation of current socio-political clashes that distress the real world. Certainly a less forgettable film than other Marvel titles, especially those devoted to farcical tout-court.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, Marvel-style mourning elaboration