Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel The Underground Railroad is earning rave reviews. The 10-part Amazon Prime mini-series imagines an alternate history where the abolitionist route for escaped slaves prior to emancipation is an actual, physical subterranean railway.
Incidentally, the fantastical railway trope is the chief feature of Netflix’s sci-fi show Snowpiercer (2020-), whilst the rocket-powered ‘Bullet Train’ is prominent in the last season of Amazon’s alt-history Man in the High Castle (2015-19).
When looking at motion pictures dealing with the subject of slavery in the United States, one must be aware of the seismic shift from its early onscreen depiction in movies such as D. W. Griffith’s 1916 Birth of a Nation (originally titled The Clansman) and the (slightly) more evolved Gone with the Wind (1939).
Antebellum (2020) – Sky Movies, NOW TV
Sky Cinema Originals probably thought they were on to a Get Out-style hit with Antebellum, where a Civil War Louisiana slave plantation is revealed to be not quite what it at first appears.
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