The Code of the Samurai – Burning an Illusion

Brit Special

Movie: Burning an Illusion (R: Menelik Shabazz, UK 1981)

Bedeutung: Burning an Illusion is a British film, written and directed by Menelik Shabazz, about a young British-born black woman's love life, mostly shot in London’s Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities. It was only the second British feature to have been made by a black director, following Horace Ové’s 1975 Pressure.

Director Menelik Shabazz follows in the footsteps of Horace Ove and directs Britain’s second (black directed) feature Burning an Illusion and like a lot of the black feature films being released in the late 1970’s to the late 1990’s – Burning an Illusion deals with racial identity, cultural assimilation and of course police brutality.

Burning an Illusion is notable for breaking the tradition of placing white males at the centre of the story. It is also unique in prioritizing the personal drama of black woman over the socio-economic and political conflicts traditionally associated with such films. As Ade Solanke writes: "Like all drama, the film is about characters facing conflicts. But unlike most dramas about black people up till then, for most of the story it dramatises personal conflicts, not socio-economic or political ones."

Inhalt: The illusions being burnt are those of Pat Williams (Cassie McFarlane), an attractive 22-year old Black girl with a steady clerical job, her own little flat in West London, and the aim of settling down to a comfortable lower-middle class married life with Mr. Right. Pat is a career driven woman with her future planned and Del Benett (Victor Romero Evans) is a prideful man who has fallen victim to the government system. They both face trials and tribulations that are fairly domestic in relation to their on-and-off relationship to Del being unemployed. These personal conflicts help understand how external forces like the supposed institutional racism that Del is being dealt with and how Pat although she has grown accustomed to western values – she is still not fully happy and begins to resent these same values.


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