TV: Behind Her Eyes (2021)

I heard about this show on a podcast and thank goodness, they didn’t say anything except watch it until the end. I’m glad I listened.
Behind Her Eyes comes off as one of those shows where people, usually women, make a series of decisions showing bad judgement, or being too nice, crossing their own boundaries. Other than the disclaimer to watch to the end, there was some other intrigue that hooked me along through the whole series.
It was worth waiting until the end. I really enjoyed the show. Good writing. Good production. Good acting. This was a Netflix original, British and has some speculative elements. Things I like.

Spoiler below. I’m warning don’t read until you watch.**********
The end was a mind-blowing reveal, which I still won’t spoil (for you greedy readers!) But I love, love, love the dip in the speculative fiction pool! Astral travel?! Wasn’t that fascinating and amazing? I would never participate because of all the possible terrifying situations pointed out in this very series! The dumbest part of this show was when she decided to astral travel into the house, which was on fire, instead of calling 999 for help. What can you do during an out of body experience to help someone in a burning building?
When you take over another person’s body, you lose access to all “institutional knowledge” and have no idea how to care for that body. I thought it was pretty unrealistic that a White person occupying a Black woman’s body would have any clue about how to do her hair, so it should have been a mess or at the very lease an ugly, messy bun.

Movie: Buck and the Preacher (1972)

The Civil War was over and by law the slaves were freed. But when the promise of land and freedom was not honored, many ex-slaves journeyed out of the land of bondage, in search of new frontiers where they could be free at last. They place their hopes in the hands of the few black wagonmasters that knew the territories of the West. None of this came easy, for not only did they have to overcome a hostile wilderness, but nightriders and bounty hunters were hired by ‘persons unknown’ to hunt them down and turn them back to the fields. This picture is dedicated to those men, women and children who lie in graves as unmarked as their place in history.

So begins the film Buck and the Preacher, an excellent western movie starring, directed, and produced by Sidney Poitier and Harry Bellafonte. Production started in 1971 and it’s only 117 minutes long. What can you do in that amount of time? You can tell a really good story with Black western antiheroes riding horses, chasing, and being chased in the chaparral. There’s also a little romance. 

I had never heard of this movie before this year. I listened to or read a Harry Bellafonte retrospective after his death (April 25, 2023) and heard that he and Sidney Poitier made a western! While I was never steeped in Sidney Poitier or Harry Bellafonte films, I feel like I should’ve heard of this one. Not only is it a good western movie, but it highlights some important historical facts like the newly freed slaves heading west to flee The South and the lack of opportunities of the east, while being hunted by former slave catchers turned “field hand recruiters” trying to scare them back to The South. Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier both gave excellent performances. Ruby Dee shows up in it too, and makes a third to the pair of Buck and the Preacher. The Native American characters, I believe are played by Native actors, which, in the 70s, is not that common. If you want to see a pre-woke-BLM, feel good, western with a cast full of people of color, you should watch Buck and the Preacher.

I checked out the DVD from my local library!

Photo by MikeGoad