“How Growing Up in Toronto’s Hip-Hop Scene in the ’90s Shaped Clement Virgo’s ‘Brother'”
By Corey Atad. Published: 2 hours ago Last updated: 1 hour ago
Clement Virgo’s acclaimed new film is a testament to family and community.
On Tuesday, Elevation Pictures officially unveiled the first trailer for the Canadian director’s epic new drama ‘Brother,’ which was voted this year’s TIFF Canada Top 10.
“Brother is the story of Francis and Michael, sons of Caribbean immigrants, who mature into young men amid Toronto’s vibrant 1990s hip-hop scene,” reads the official logline. “A mystery unfolds as escalating tensions trigger a series of events that will forever change the course of the brothers’ lives.”
Photo: Height Images
READ MORE: Clement Virgo’s ‘Brother’ premieres at Toronto International Film Festival
Through a story of grief and loss, the film explores themes such as “masculinity, identity and family” as well as the “deep bond between siblings, the resilience of a community and the irrepressible power of music”.
In a way, the new film acts as a career bookend with Virgo’s 1995 directorial debut RUDE, a triptych of three characters struggling for redemption over an Easter weekend downtown.
“It’s inevitable that anyone who knows my work will see an overlap between the world and feelings in ‘RUDE’ and ‘Brother,’” Virgo says in the official press release. “Now when I watch RUDE, I see a film that was directed by a younger man. There’s so much energy in it, so much excitement and there’s a sense of youthful exuberance and drive. ‘Brother’ is done by an older person, more meditative and controlled, and to me a much more thoughtful, muscular film.”
“Brother” centers on a family led by a strong, single, Jamaican mother, Ruth, whose worldviews clash with her sons’ experience of the realities of growing up in Canada. focuses on a family led by Ruth, a strong, single, Jamaican mother whose worldview differs from her sons’ and how they perceive the reality of Canada.
“Brother sees growing up with a certain look at you and feels uncomfortable in the town you’ve always lived in,” explains Virgo. “These are issues not only of decades past, but of today, and not just those that affect young black men, but all of us. If filmmakers are interested in a topic, they will come back to it again and again. Stories about immigrants, alienation and masculinity interest me.”
Photo: Height Images
The film is based on the 2017 novel of the same name by David Chariandy, and the first time Virgo read it, he knew he had to make a film out of it.
“The story of Michael and Francis is set in a West Indian immigrant household in a low-income housing complex in Scarborough in the early 1990’s. I am an immigrant. I grew up a decade ago and a dozen miles away in downtown Regent Park,” he says.
“Like the two brothers, I was raised by a disciplined single mother who spent most of her waking hours working in the lower reaches of town. And like her, I have come of age into a world where young black manhood is considered an insult,” Virgo continues. “I grew up wondering how do you understand yourself when the world expects you to be a criminal just because you’re black? How do you get to know your own feelings when a Stoic is expected not to have any? How do you overcome the prejudices and expectations you face every day?”
Chariandy says of the adaptation: “I hoped in the book, through description and through linguistic tricks, to show the unspoken gestures of intimacy and the moments of joy engraved in ordinary circumstances. But to see veteran actors find their own ways of expressing those intimacies, those acts of everyday tenderness in a narrative that also deals with catastrophic loss, that’s extraordinary.”
It stars Lamar Johnson (“Your Honor,” “The Last of Us”) as Michael, Aaron Pierre (“The Underground Railroad,” “Old”) as his older brother Francis, and Marsha Stephanie Blake (“Orange Is the New Black ‘, ‘When They See Us’) as her mother Ruth.
Commenting on his role as part of the film, Johnson says, “Scarborough shaped me. It shaped me: the art, the people, the culture. To be a part of this story, I just feel very honored and grateful. Scarborough has a depth that brings this story to life, a side you don’t see in newspaper headlines.”
He adds: “Yeah, there’s tension there, and ultimately it’s rooted in people trying to make ends meet, trying to get food on their table. Scarborough is a melting pot of everything. There’s companionship, there’s love, there’s compassion. I think it’s very unique and it’s beautiful.”
On embodying Francis’ presence in the film, Pierre says, “He’s a very special young man. He has ambition, plans and drive and he is certainly emotionally intelligent. Something I share with Francis is his protective nature towards loved ones.”
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Photo: Height Images
Blake also identified strongly with Ruth in bringing the character to life on screen. “I recognized Ruth because she reminded me of my mother. She reminded me of all my aunts. They did exactly the same kind of work in New York. They lived in similar situations,” she recalls.
For Virgo, telling the story of Brother also fits into a long tradition of great, epic storytelling on the big screen.
“The intergenerational immigrant story, the experience of people who are considered ‘different’, is nothing new in cinema,” he points out. “When I hear that expression, it makes me think of The Godfather trilogy. The story of the first generation sacrificing and working for the second generation and the tensions that might happen is what interests me. Can you have too many? I don’t believe. There is always a different angle, a different look at this story.”
The director adds, “I think the world of storytelling is changing. What is at the center, which stories occupy the center, changes. A few years ago, the immigrant story would not have taken center stage, but audiences are interested in going beyond what we’ve seen over the past 50 years and are curious about other perspectives. I look forward to seeing all the different versions of these stories. And I hope that ‘Brother’ contributes to that.”
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