Black Earth Rising

I can't pretend to understand or ever really know the pain of the survivors of the Rwanda genocide but this drama has such strength in not only Michaela Coel's performance but in its script, its twists and turns, its depth and sensitivity to a painful and ultimately so desperately human tragedy that anyone who has the capacity to want to at least learn even at they watch how much the "great game" and its modern equivalents have repercussions beyond anything imaginable to most of us outside its direct impact.

Of course it's written from a Western lens and can never tell a "true" tale but it helps us, I think, to see how difficult, how complex and how deeply impactful the very things we take for granted today have had on millions of lives far away from ours, and even now, how a few powerful people keep trying to control everything, regardless of how lives are completely torn asunder to gain their wealth and power.

Don't let its pace or its great visual beauty put you off its underlying message. Everyone has secrets, everyone has pain and sickness and death will always walk amongst the living but sometimes the truth has to come out in order for us to move forwards. The reality of our world is one where some will always seek, through the vilest means, to sacrifice the lives of thousands for profit and power. Only though understanding that can we ever seek to encourage justice, change and hope.

Hugo Blick is arguably the most ambitious writer of television drama in Britain today, and he certainly restates his case with 'Black Earth Rising', his latest work, which is by turns brilliant, intelligent and maddening. The series touches upon an immensely difficult subject - the Rwandan genocide - and amazingly manages to give mass murder a delicate, nuanced treatment without hiding from the horror. The acting and direction are also first rate. And yet, I found the central character deeply unappealing (though impressively portrayed by Michaela Coel), a person who demands the right to set the terms of debate with an inner sense of absolute moral certainty. Blick's script allows for the fact that she might be a difficult person to be around; but not that she might be wrong. And if part of Blick's skill is to distill huge issues into personal dramas, there are perhaps unintended side effects, most obviously that the fate of a country seems to be in the hands of a handful of people, all of whom know each other extremely closely, but this goes uncommented upon. In some ways, these two issues coincide - that the good guys have the right to represent their nation is presented almost as a given. Yet while I can nitpick, it's a story that will remain in my mind long after countless police procedurals have been forgotten. It's worth your time.

This series, frankly, left me changed in ways I don't fully understand yet - changed, I think, about human condition. John Goodman was as solid as John Goodman can get, but it is Michaela Coel's (Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson's) performance that is riveting! You are never shown the scenes of the genocide directly. They are creatively gentled in animation that tells the story without showing the story, and in aftermaths that drive home reality without a bloody middle. I was grateful for that. I love a good mystery and this has many!... And, I appreciate a deeper understanding of a history that seemed incomprehensible and far away at the time. Finally, I appreciated the complex view into the way in which White, Third World nations continue to profit from the mess we had a hand in both creating and in trying to repair. If you have a stomach for hope and despair, it doesn't get better than this.

An intelligent script digs below the superficial understanding that some of us (including me) have of the dreadful events in Rwanda, while creating strong characters to drive forward a human story. The actors are more than up to the task of making this balance work. I am gripped and eagerly await episode 3.

I have been writing reviews for this site for 17 years. Mostly films but also TV. Some great films, some very bad ones. Even the best ones had flaws - the acting was great but the direction was so-so etc. etc. But in Black Earth Rising, I think that I may at last have seen perfection - and I don't say that lightly. Where to start? I'll try to break it down then summarise.

Extrordinary complex but wonderfully constructed and written script. Acting to die for - from everyone. Certainly the best directed piece of film or TV I think I have ever seen. Blick's sense of timing is immaculate and his eye for detail stunning. Stunning visuals - the photography by Hubert Taczanowski is an example of perfection - the lighting, the perfect camera movement - just turn off the sound and watch each camera movement and each shot's lighting and composition. A masterclass - watch on a plasma or OLED not an LCD though. Perfect sound - every word, even every rustle of the actors clothes perfectly recorded with absolute clarity. The animated sections were a stroke of genius and so sensitively made. The music always a perfect choice - Lou Reed's Vanising Act especially.

There might be better made TV drama, but I have yet to see it.

I have come away from episode 5 absolutely mesmerized. Compelling, beautiful, powerful - stunning in every way.