Steve McQueen’s Education, the final film in the Small Axe anthology series, is so deeply moving, and moves us further into a space of hope for the future and a resolve to change the present. McQueen still explores the targeted racism faced by this community – this time focusing on the ways the education system fails Black children – treating their behavioral issues more harshly than their white peers, assuming a lack of intelligence and letting them fall further and further behind, and finally shuffling them off to “special” schools in order to improve the “regular” school’s test scores, all the while denying them access to the educational opportunities they so desperately need. Once again, McQueen shows how people’s political consciousnesses are awakened through connection and community, learning that they don’t have to accept the injustices that have been foisted upon them by a broken society. McQueen continues his use of powerful and poetic imagery to capture these moments of fractured and mended connections – a mother walking away from her son as he’s about to leave for this “special” school for the first time, the family coming together again in a tight embrace as they all realize how the system has cheated them. While much of the Small Axe series has focused on the power of music to unite, this installment features a long, stultifying sequence showing the power of music to dull and numb, whereas reconnecting with a heritage that has been stolen and repressed has the power mend divisions and inspire a young child to look to the future. McQueen ends the film – and the entire cycle of films – on an image of hope that is so stirring, powerful, and transformative. This is cinema at its best.
