Hero Inspired by the Extraordinary Life & Times of Ulric Cross

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334364446 HERO, a ﬁlm Review.Saakana Article · July 2019 CITATIONS READS 0 29 1 author: Amon Saba Saakana 10 PUBLICATIONS 1 CITATION SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Black Face in Media Race View project Obituary View project All content following this page was uploaded by Amon Saba Saakana on 10 July 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Hero InspIred by tHe extraordInary LIfe & tImes of ULrIc cross Actors Nicholai Salcedo (Ulric Cross) and John Dunelo (Kofi Mensah) in Hero. amon saba saakana A plague that perplexes the imagination of a writer and film director is how to transform a story from printed text into a medium of entertainment and information, blending the serious with the mundane? Spike Lee confronted this task in Malcolm X, a larger than life figure who led an ex - traordinary and inspiring life, and I was not convinced that he found the formula, the magical po - tion that blends and gestates a convincing filmic sensibility despite the budget, gloss and glitter. Frances Ann Solomon, the granddaughter of former PNM minister and mayor of Port of Spain, Dr Patrick Solomon, was born in the UK, and may have imbibed or had herself innoculated with a tough sheen through the combative strength of her quietly spoken grandfather whose infamous resistance, it was widely rumoured in the early 1960s, to the “deaf dictator,” first Premier and Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, the highly reputed slavery scholar Dr Eric Williams, whose demands for intimacy with Solomon’s wife met with a stern response of Solomon’s gun. I say this as model of conviction and able-bodiedness to pursue an oath to make a film on the life of Ulric Cross (eight years in the making), a highly decorated war hero who fought as a squadron leader against the Hitler campaign to spread racial disease from the late 1930s. Cross, determined and convinced that he was as good if not better than any Englishman, irrev - ocably set the standard, and for which there is ample evidence of its consistency in historical Caribbean life, that both colonialism and the stinking coinage of racial bigotry were to be resisted with skill and the smell of victory. Solomon who considers herself part of Cross’ extended family, would have invariably codified the depth of resistance expressed by individuals who refused to be defined by a history of in - denture and enslavement. Brought up in a class-ridden Trinidadian society, Solomon was both privileged and exposed to graded consciousness of racial identity. The context, therefore, of the nuances of the film and emphasised combative, resisting intelligences between the op - pressed and racially maligned Caribbean and the post-colonial continuity of extractive and ad - vantaged political powers of the English, is boldly dramatised in this film. Obviously, the genre within which she defines and casts her film, a docu-drama, expresses pro - foundly, and somewhat testily, Solomon’s training at the BBC both as director and producer. Clearly embarking on a quest of individuation, Solomon marries the documentary of facts with the drama of speech and gesture conveyed with a deep filmic sense that moves subject and time rapidly, summarising narrative segments with the intersection of live footage in rapid edited succession. It is remarkable how she fits into the film brief but powerful appearances of the first and second waves of Caribbean political, intellectual and literary figures: CLR James, George Padmore, Ras Makonnen, as committed socialist oriented philosophers and activists consciously aware of the vulnerability of national and international consciousness and not only the vitriol but murderous defence of the monied class in their attempt to maintain the subaltern position of Africa. And later cameo appearances of VS Naipaul, George Lamming and Samuel Selvon as budding writers on BBC radio’s oversea broadcasts. Here our hero, Ulric Cross, was first employed by the BBC as a producer but left, presumably, because of the limitation placed on the philosophical freedom of expression of the writers them - selves. Here, we can juxtapose Solomon’s inner light going off when, in the 1990s, a senior di - rector of the BBC blatantly shelved a film she had made on the trials of the Broadwater Farm’s accused. Cross, like CLR James before him, was a national exhibition winner that took him to one of the two prestigious secondary schools in Trinidad but soon fell into an emotional morass at the sudden death of his mother (well played by the loving and beautiful Tessa Alexander). Leaving school at 15 he had to accept lowly paid jobs but found an alternative to educating him - self by forming a reading group that foraged the works of a spectrum of European and American writers including Mein Kampf by the rampaging and toxic Adolph Hitler. Leaving Trinidad in 1941, despite resistance, he got trained as a pilot and demonstrated brav - ery, skill and diligence at targeting key locations of the enemy. Returning to Trinidad after victory, he experienced the limited opportunity offered the black colonial. He returned to the UK and in fourteen months passed the Bar exams but could not find a single job in any law firm. Thanks to the intervention of CLR James, he flew to Ghana and became a key colleague in Nkrumah’s bat - tle against colonialism and the war for independence. Cross not only had to be subjected to im - mense scrutiny of the British secret service but also had to battle with collaborative African chiefs who were custodians of land where gold was abundant, and were totally unwilling to share its in - come with the new government. Cross then devised a plan of taxing the foreign producers di - rectly. In this broadly based film, interweaving Cross’ personal love interest with his political life, Solomon magically achieves a balance between the two, not forgetting her mission as feminist to portray Cross’ future English wife as an independent, adventurous and individuated woman. In her African working and domestic settings, Solomon portrays Cross’ wife (Pippa Nixon’s em - blematic portrayal is well studied) not simply as a European woman but focuses on her female humanity which liberates her from her class and ethnic prejudices, so that one can read her also as an African woman. Interstingly, Solomon weaves the subtlety of Cross making a pass at his female servant, not missing a possible opportunity of immersing himself in African waters. There are many interesting weaves in this film as Cross, on his journeying, meets African and Caribbean individuals who value each other’s company. James “Pony” MacFarlane (Peter Williams) comes into Cross’ (Nicholai Salcedo) life as bosom friend and his tenure with the British Foreign Office later has him exposed as a spy and paid instigator of undermining perceived rad - ical governments and individuals and his collaborative role in overthrowing Nkrumah and in top - pling Patrice Lumumba, stopped ultimately by leaked information by an English colleague and the intervention of CLR James which saved Nyerere. Confronting each other, Pony tells Cross they both worked for the Foreign Office and Cross replied but they occupy different opposing positions. Like the collaboration of some African kings and chiefs in the selling of Africans to the transat Actors Nicholai Salcedo (Ulric Cross) and John Dunelo (Kofi Mensah) in Hero. lantic slave trade, Solomon exposes a continuity with colonial and post-colonial collaboration and the forces of disruption, oppression and murder. Cross was inevitably pivotal in the reconstructive aspect of post colonial life, and he moved from Ghana, to Cameroon, to Nyerere’s Tanzania for whom the fate of Nkrumah and Lumumba awaited him, only now armed with the knowledge of the destructive role of Pony, he was able to alert the government who not only confiscated the money and weapons that Pony was distribut - ing to collaborative agents of imperialism, but successfully ejected Pony from the country without a diplomatic fracas. The documentary element is supplied by several devices: Cross’ daughter is taking notes from her father in his sick bed, while Cross’ real wife narrates their lives together. Solomon by using this filmic method is able to tell her story from various angles and one benefits empathitically from this multivoiced narrative rather than “the single story” bias that novelist Chimamanda Adichie warns about. Complexity of character is also beautifully evoked with the playful Kofi Mensah, a close and trusted friend, morphing into someone who eventually takes a practical rather than moral stance on a political question. Just like Pony slowly morphing from a middle-class aspirant and close friend to Cross into a paid servant willing to betray his world’s future for a few tossed coins from the bloodied hands of Pontius Pilot. But the beautiful portrayal of PK Asante by John Dumelo ax - iomises the meaning of true friendship and dedication. Hero represents a crossing over from the misty cliffs of Dover, the dark holes of smelly and cruel transatlantic journeys, healing the infected eyes of myopia and incorporation, to revelations of liberating information that propel the individual and collective African world not to betray its combative and denigrated ancestors, but to renew the flame of commitment that leaves the fan - tasy of Wakanda in the saharan dust of sterility. Amon Saba Saakana is a retired lecturer, publisher, editor and author. Email: [email protected] View publication stats.

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