NYC is a resilient Black woman 

‘A Thousand and One’ now showing at The Nugget 

Source: telluridenews.com 

Imagine you’re a young Black woman who’s made your first feature film. You’ve written and directed a movie that’s been accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. The film is getting a little festival buzz…then you win the Grand Jury Prize for the US Dramatic Feature. What a wonderful honor. Can you imagine what A.V. Rockwell must’ve felt like?  

She’d previously created short films. One of which, “Feathers” (2018), attracted the attention of Lena Waithe and Rishi Rajani(Hillman Grad Productions). Waithe invited her to direct an episode of the “Boomerang” series for television. Rockwell pitched a feature film that she was developing.  

“A Thousand and One” opening Friday at The Nugget, is a deeply personal story of an inner-city NY woman struggling to find stability and make a home for her son. Waithe is a producer of the film. It’s being distributed by Focus Features. 

A love letter to Harlem and the women who are often overlooked or misrepresented, “A Thousand and One” positions the lead character as a symbol for NYC. Rockwell has set the film over three periods of time: 1994, 2001 and 2005. There are three actors who play the three different ages of Inez’s son, Terry. The cinematography and the music reflect the different eras and news clips reveal what’s going on in NYC during those times.  

Teyana Taylor is an R&B singer in her first starring role as the lead, Inez. She’s a fierce presence. The film opens with her striding through her Brooklyn neighborhood having just been released from Riker’s. Dressed in a red tank top and sporting huge gold earrings, she’s a vibrant, loud young woman. Scrambling to find work as a hairdresser, she reconnects with her son, Terry, who’s been in foster care.  

When it’s clear that Terry will be moved into a new foster care home, carrying all his possessions in a black garbage bag, Inez makes the fraught choice to take him with her. She has no home and no job. All she has is the knowledge that she needs to create a place for the two of them. She’s desperate to give him the love and stability that she never had.  

Taylor is outstanding in the role. Inez is a complicated human—volatile, tenacious, proud and bitter but with a great tenderness and love for Terry. As she makes choices to keep the two of them safe and stable in their tiny apartment (1001 is their apartment number), we see Terry’s extreme joy as he bounces on his first bed; his first room of his own. But Inez is traveling two hours by train to clean houses. She’s no longer as vibrant, and Terry is left alone. There are compromises that need to be made, including a new identity for Terry.  

We see the fear and mistrust of the police and the effects of the stop-and-frisk policy. As Harlem goes from gritty, noisy and colorful to becoming cleaner but less welcoming to mom-and-pop shops and migrants, so too, Inez changes. She’s weary and wearing black. No longer sporting bright jewelry and coiffed hair, she’s worn down. Terry has found a father figure and is doing well in school and there’s some stability. 

As gentrification takes over Harlem and Inez continues to struggle in her relationship, more color bleeds from the film. The landlord seems to be trying to force them out. Terry finds out he needs to face up to his stolen identity. As Rockwell said in an interview at the Santa Barbara film festival, “NY is a part of my DNA…how do I feel about the fact that a city that I know and love, may never have loved me?” It seems that Harlem is no longer a safe haven for Inez and Terry.  

For the filmmaker, her love of NYC is a complicated love. For Inez, her love of Terry is a complicated love. “A Thousand and One” is full of unresolved questions and complex feelings and a portrait of NYC that you may not have seen before. It’s a truly astounding debut film and a remarkable performance by Teyana Taylor.  

Drinks with Films rating: 3 bottles of beer served on the stoop in Harlem out of 5.