So much of Steve McQueen's Small Axe series revolves around the West Indian immigrant community's anti-assimilationist struggle in Britain. We rarely see these people wanting to fit into a new way of life that goes against their cultural community. Instead, we see them rebel through disparate means - non-violent protests, loving, partying, educating - to make sure they keep their Caribbean culture alive even though the "system" attempts to undermine it.

What particularly struck me while watching the five episodes/films is the varied ways McQueen uses both the domestic and the public sphere to demonstrate this contrasting or consistent struggle.

In the case of the first two films - Mangrove, and Lovers Rock - there seems to be a clear contrast between these two worlds. The domestic (or private) sphere - the Mangrove restaurant and the house-party - both provide respite from the outside world, whereby the oppressive forces of police brutality and racism take center stage. In Mangrove, McQueen emphasizes how the latter's forces forcibly intrude on the former. He does provide small moments that highlight the community's vibrant culture, capturing the entire group of characters in wide-shots dancing to the infectiously energetic reggae music. However, these comprise a minimal amount of the film's runtime. The director focuses majorly on the court trial that exposes Britain's institutional racism.

On the other hand, Lovers Rock entirely flips the time dedicated to celebrating Caribbean culture rather than directing righteous fury at an already rigged system. Entirely set inside a house with the camera floating much more fluidly than in any other McQueen movie ever, this second film's form itself feels liberated from the kind of formalism the director is known for. It flows with these people as they dance, kiss, and sing, emphasizing the sweat and passion dripping not only from the room's interior fabrics but also their bodies. However, this heat is different from what these characters face outside this house. Frequently, McQueen makes the audience aware of that by using the police siren or racist white characters in the background, sharply contrasting with the reggae rhythms inside the house.

While this dialectic between the private and public defines the dramatic tension in these first two films, McQueen attempts to (somewhat unsuccessfully) complicate this in the fourth and fifth films. In Alex Wheatle, the director condenses the complicated life of a conflicted black Britisher who attempts to assimilate into the West Indian community in broad strokes. The opening sequences suggest the complex struggle that Wheatle experiences in prison and in his community. The prison sequences could seem an extension of Mangrove. However, unlike that film and Lovers Rock, Wheatle seems to also struggle to fit into the West Indian community space. That is, for him, both the public and private spheres seem estranged, placing him as someone going through an identity crisis. Rather than lingering on this conflict, McQueen montages his way through it, characterizing Wheatle as someone who very easily becomes a part of his community. Therefore, uncomplicatedly and unconvincingly, delineating the oppressive public sphere from the comfortable private sphere.

Education, the series' concluding segment, similarly begins by complicating this boundary. McQueen introduces Kingsley as a child seemingly happy in his school life. By contrast, his life with his strict mother and neglectful father seems more oppressive. However, soon enough, his school's white teachers, too, begin to pick on him for his inability to read fluently in school. For a longer duration than in Alex Wheatle, McQueen dramatizes these consistent but different forms of oppression and neglect that Kinglsey feels at his house and school. These sections implicitly imply that the brute force of this more visible racism has power that extends beyond generations. That is, Kingsley's parents, themselves victims of oppression and burdened by their economic problems, are unable to share ample time with their children, who also seem isolated at home. Therefore, both the private and public spheres become alienated spaces for children like Kingsley. However, the second half of the film provides concrete solutions, much too didactically. Here again, McQueen somewhat unconvincingly resolves the familial drama to paint the West Indian immigrant community and his house as resistive methods to oppressive outside forces.

I think both these films in the Small Axe series are less dramatically compelling than the first two films because they position themselves as character studies that never really dig into their complexities. Both Mangrove and Lovers Rock do more overtly utilize clear distinction between private and public places but they also seem to not focus on a particular character but a collective community. Because the focus is on the West Indian community than on a single person within it, the sharp contrasts feel of a piece with these films.

The "bridge" between these films, Red, White, and Blue, that both captures this clear divide between these spaces but also manages to complicate them, is my favorite of the lot. It functions mainly as a character study of a research scientist-turned-police officer, Leroy Logan (a phenomenally understated John Boyega). Unlike the last two entries in the Small Axe series, though, it charts, in detail, the gradual erosion of the private space as having resistive power that can outmatch those of oppression. The first section of the film draws out a similar contrast that the first two films did. The family gatherings and Logan's relationship with his wife, friend, aunt, and father suggest a degree of comfort he feels in these surroundings. Therefore, we get scrabble games, Star Wars jokes (made me audibly laugh), dancing to reggae music. McQueen juxtaposes this with his father's altercation with the white police officers who stop and search him without a warrant. In effect, the film promises a similar conflict between these two spaces.

However, following a violent physical assault on his father, Leroy decides to quit his desk job to join the police force to actively change the racist culture in the force. This professional transition allows McQueen to chart Leroy's subsequent alienation, not only from the public sphere that was already fraught with animosity towards him but also from his own community, who now view him as a "traitor." The film captures the latter most through his relationship with his father. Staunchly anti-police, his father berates Leroy for even thinking of joining them. He sees it as a betrayal, revealing his "stubborn" and hopeless attitude towards "big change." That Leroy (at least in the film) maybe ends up sharing a similar attitude to his father after working for the police provides a hint at a possible reconciliation that would suggest a level of comfort he now feels in his home. However, the muted nature of the scene, framed in a long wide-shot, leaves the question unanswered.