Film Review

StreetWise Vendor A. Allen Reviews The Film 'Chevalier'

Kelvin Harrison Jr., Samara Weaving and Alex Fizalan in the film Chevalier

Larry Horricks

The recently released “Chevalier” movie is extraordinary, superb and wonderful.

The movie starts out with Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Joseph Boulogne in a violin duel with Amadeus Mozart. The duel is what the movie is all about. Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges, should have been just as famous as Mozart. The violin duel begins with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5. Bologne shows up and outplays the legendary Mozart. He adds a little soul to his style. The duel goes back and forth but the gist of it was that it was extraordinary to think that a Black man could play toe to toe with the 18th century violinist and composer.

It is superb because it shows how an illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner could rise to new legitimate and professional heights in French society. His father set him up for success when he sent him to the best school in France, where he perfected his music and fencing skills, so that he could rise to the social status of “chevalier,” or knight to the king. “No one can argue with an excellent Frenchman,” he said, as he dropped him off, and departed.

The movie is wonderful because the story is true. It also has the passion, the tension of social and racial issues that human beings faced yesterday and still today.

It is also wonderful, because excellence should never be judged by skin color. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, our kids should not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. The point is, excellence represents itself. It doesn’t have a need for color or social status to confirm or affirm its position.

"Chevalier" is in theaters as of print date.

"Chevalier" is also available from all major digital retailers, including Prime Video, Apple TV, Vudu, and Moves Anywhere