It seems like the dialogue surrounding the romantic relationships between Black men and White women has been negatively sensationalized more than ever. There’s a very specific lane of chronically online White guys that deal with what appears to be Black male penis envy by going online to call White women with Black male partners things like “mud shark” or “race traitor”. As a Black man with a White wife and a biracial son, I sometimes find myself fascinated by this. When I have down time I take a couple of minutes to comb through the comment sections of various tweets, tiktoks and IG posts thinking to myself; “I never come across these people offline”. It's weird.
On the opposite end of the bench is a very specific lane of pro-Black online pseudo activists who’s entire personality is dick-policing and penis-watching Black men in relationships with White women. They swear they don’t care who dates who but they always write some thesis-level explanation as to why they supposedly don’t care then constantly give their thoughts and opinions on interracial relationships that don’t concern them. That’s an interesting way to not care about something. And I as I stated in my review on Sinners, it’s almost always only a critique on Black men and White women but silence on just about any other interracial combination. Funny how that works. You’ve got meme-fied online figures like Dr Umar Johnson who has officially become the face of straight Black male dick-policing. Last time I checked, it’s odd behavior for straight men to concern themselves with who other straight men date. That’s something gossipy girls do. But perhaps I was just raised with a different set of values.
I say all this because Nicolas Provost's 2011 film
The Invader addresses all of this and more. I'm just not sure it succeeds at the end of the day...
I saw this at the Toronto film festival 14 years ago and got so caught up in the overt racial commentary concerning Black men and White women that I completely overlooked the cinematic influences and the obvious commentary on the growing fear of African and Caribbean migrants entering Europe. The movie is literally called “The Invader”. I’m not sure how I missed that. It’s been a long time since I watched this movie from start to finish but every once in a while a random scene will pop up in my mind. Again - I don’t know if this movie is a success but clearly there’s
something thought provoking there considering I haven’t forgotten about it after all these years. I guess any movie that takes an unflinching and naive/borderline unrealistic look at interracial relationships and immigration is going to leave a mark.
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Psycho / Blue Velvet / The Invader
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the people who brought me the most are Hitchcock, Lynch and Kubrick. To me they are the most important masters. They made me dream the most – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
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| Vertigo / The Invader |
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Vertigo / The Invader
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Vertigo / The Invader
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The Invader also shares a lot of coincidental similarities with Steve McQueen’s Shame and Lodge Kerrigan’s Claire Dolan as well. From a subject matter standpoint – The Invader would pair well with Claire Denis’ No Fear, No Die in that they’re both clearly about the fear of Black migrants coming over to Europe…
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| Shame / The Invader |
I’m kind of glad this movie came out in 2011 instead of today. If the right/wrong people caught wind of it, we would have gotten some of the most insufferable commentary from people who’d use this movie to fit their personal agenda. That’s sort of the problem with this movie. To be clear – it’s incredibly well-made and very thought provoking. But it’s one of those movies where the audience should be required to read at least
one interview of the director so you could see where is head was at when making this. But that’s obviously unrealistic. Most people aren’t going to make the effort to read an interview with an obscure arthouse Belgian director. Nicolos Provost is incredibly liberal and anti-racist He also doesn’t appear to be anti-immigration.
I wanted to create a feeling where this story is not just an anti-hero story. It’s also about our projection on immigrants. It becomes the monster that we project on immigrants, sometimes. I’m not trying to judge anyone. That’s what I hope is clear with the film, that I’m not taking parts. I’m not trying to come up with a voice for the immigrants, and I’m not blaming the Western world. It’s a tragic situation – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
But without doing some quick research on the director and his personal views, one might think his film was an anti-immigration/anti-interracial relationship propaganda movie. This is potentially dangerous. That doesn’t necessarily make it Provost’s fault though. Most people are either very stupid or disingenuous or a combination of both. Like I said earlier – people are way more in to making art fit or speak to their own personal agendas. Someone could watch
The Invader and think it’s a nationalist tool to promote hatred towards Black men and their “invasion” of Europe. If you’ve been keeping yourself up to date with current events, then you know immigration is a hot topic all over the world right now (especially darker-skinned migrants). Folks online, specifically the archetypes I laid out at the start of this entry, want to believe those negative stereotype that exist concerning Black men and White women.
The Invader is the type of film that might give those people validation to go “I KNEW IT!”. The opening scene alone, where the lead Black male is ogling a naked White woman on a beach, is enough to fuel their naïve beliefs.
At the end of the day this movie kind of leaves you wondering “so…what was the point of all this? The message seems a little mixed.” Normally, a mixed message or something left up for different interpretations isn’t always a bad thing. But when you take the director’s own words and put them up against the movie itself – certain things don’t align.
No matter how much of a mixed message this movie sends, I certainly encourage any and all viewers with the ability to think abstractly to seek it out. “Good” or “bad” it’s no doubt thought provoking. If you’re able to find a digital copy and come out confused, I think that’s perfectly understandable. If you’ve seen this and think I’m off or missing something, please let me know.
