Written on November 15th, 2019.
SYNOPSIS: On Guava Island, a local musician is determined to throw a festival for everyone to enjoy. A tropical thriller starring Donald Glover and Rihanna.
Guava Island is a 55-minute-long Amazon Prime original film, and deals heavily with the notion of a musical, and how that branches out. This essay will examine the film's conflict of freedom.
The movie starts with an animated sequence. The narrator tells that this story is one that her mother told her. narrating of duelling truths, love and war. 7 ancient gods created the Guava Island away from war. It describes of the clayworm, a creature that is only found on the island and spins the most beautiful silk. However, wherever there is love, there is war. The Red family took control of all the silk and the people of Guava Island, leading to unrest and distrust among the people. The gods were angry and turned their backs away from the island.
Deni Maroon, played by Donald Glover, is a local celebrity who loves music, and early on in the film we know that Deni would be hosting a music festival. His wife, Kofi, played by Rihanna, works as a seamstress along with her friend Yara, played by Letitia Wright, sewing the blue silk under the rule of Red. Deni, who also works for Red (as most of the people on the Island do), goes to work and dances to Donald Glover's own song "This is America", before getting kidnapped and brought to Red. In Red's office, Deni sees a blue bird trapped in a cage. Hold on to this, as it does serve as a plot device for the story. Red tells Deni not to play at the festival as it would decrease productivity at work the next day. Red bribes Deni by giving him $10 000 and destroying his guitar.
Deni returns to Kofi and does not tell anyone of what happened, but sings to her a song called "Summertime Magic", a song he had promised to write her since they were children. Later at work, Kofi tells Yara that she is reluctant to tell Deni that she is pregnant due to his free-spirited lifestyle.
We cut to a scene of Deni talking to two children, whom ask Deni to sing a song at the festival and dedicate it to their names. Deni, although previously having been threatened by Red, agrees to do so.
The festival begins and the people of Guava Island all dress up and partake in the event. Deni arrives and begin to sing, before Kofi catches sight of a masked gunman and tries to warn Deni. The gunman fires two shots but misses. Deni rushes to hide. In this room, he sees the same blue bird, now free of its cage, shortly before he gets found and killed.
The next day Red goes to check on his workers' progress, but finds no one in his factories. All the people of Guava Island participate in a joyous blue-themed memorial ceremony for Deni. The people are celebrating, as they have gone against the ruler and restored the exuburance the island originally had. Similar to how the bird that found freedom, the people have as well. Deni, as free-spirited as he was, disobeyed the threats of Red, for the people of the island.
From the opening shot of love and war we see that love is represented by blue and war is represented by red. The blue silk is what was loved by the islanders before the Red family came. We see that Deni wears a combination of colours instead of a pure red, which is what the other workers do. Deni's literal last name, Maroon, demonstrates the conflict inside him. Maroon is a mix of red and purple. And purple is a mix of blue and red. Maroon shows us that the side of evil (represented by red) is ever-ruling, and there is little good (represented by blue) that is left on the island, slowly diminishing by the red. At Deni's final performace at the festival, he wears a colour blend of red and blue, once more showing that Deni is relentless, and does not do everything for the Red family, just like how he defies the orders of Red and continues to perform at the festival. The final memorial has all the people wearing blue, while Red is the needle in the haystack that is different from the rest, thereby illustrates that love has returned to the island, and war is mostly, if not completely, forgotten.
The screen cuts to black as narrator states that she will now tell of her story different from what her mother told her, a story of how dreams come true. This acts as further confirmation that the life that went on was one that society was finally free of the struggle of power.