Blood Brothers review: Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X's old bond in new light

Two recent films came to mind while I watched Marcus A Clarke’s Blood Brothers, a clear-minded documentary charting the friendship between civil rights comrades Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. The first title is a companion piece. Regina King’s terrific directorial debut, One Night in Miami, is a fictionalised account of a meeting between Ali, X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke on the night the young boxer – then known as Cassius Clay – becomes the Heavyweight Champion in 1964. The meeting happens at a crucial juncture in both Clay and X’s journey together: Clay is on the brink of joining the Nation of Islam and declaring his new Muslim faith to the world, while his mentor X is on the verge of leaving the organisation after his rift with leader Elijah Muhammad.   The chatty night serves as a microcosm of the feelings of betrayal beginning to brew between the two “blood brothers.” Those who have seen this film will immediately get the context when, in Blood Brothers, a talking head mentions the mysterious meeting at Miami’s Hampton Hotel: “Nobody knows what was said in there.” Scenes from King’s film – especially Malcolm X’s tense exchanges with Sam Cooke – fill in the ideological blanks, fleshing out the eloquent narrative skeleton traced by this documentary.   The second title is not directly connected to Blood Brothers, and yet it is. In the docu-series _Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union_ , we see a young Barack Obama finding meaning and mentorship in Reverend Jeremiah Wright, an influential pastor of the Trinity United Christ Church in Chicago. In the thick of the US Presidential race, however, a few of Wright’s radical white-bashing sermons from the past are leaked to trigger an untimely controversy for the African-American candidate. Obama is forced to distance himself from the old pastor, who later expresses a sense of betrayal in his interview with the makers of the series. Cornel West, a political activist and philosopher who criticises Obama’s mild stance, also appears in Blood Brothers to explain a similar conflict between Ali and Malcom X. A hardlining X is ostracised from the Nation of Islam for defying his leader and making inflammatory comments on the Kennedy Assassination. And Ali is then forced to choose “between individual and institution” only to realise his folly late in life – just like Obama does late into his second term, when he recognises that his identity and institution need not be at odds with each other. This inner turmoil is never seen but hinted at by Ali’s brother and daughter in Blood Brothers. A mellow Obama towards the end of his presidency reflects Ali’s guilt after he himself severes ties with the Nation of Islam, long after the assassination of his ex-friend.

The documentary paints the boxer’s three-year bond with Malcolm X as a doomed relationship – and the two as unhinged victims, rather than powerful narrators, of the black rage lining the periphery of America’s White Supremacist movement.

Though they both started out as a necessary voice against racial oppression, the documentary takes a closer look at the problematic people they morphed into – and the price they paid for their leaps of faith. (Liberal Twitter would have cancelled them today). While watching Ali make the most brainwashed statements in his TV interviews, I could not help but wonder how we choose to remember heroes the way we want to – edited, immortal, and pure. Selective memory is a coping mechanism for not just humans but time itself.   Given that art and popular culture have spent decades whitewashing Muhammad Ali’s legacy, this is a brave and pragmatic stance to take for a film. His boxing was an extension of his defiance. But somewhere in the reels and reels of romanticised rage, the militant motivations of a flawed young man caught in the crosshairs of rebellion have been lost in translation. We see footage of both X and Ali sounding like extremist nutcases, slowly becoming the (diametrically opposite) monsters they set out to battle. Ali promises death to any of Elijah’s deviated followers, while X vows violence to the white population that fails to heed his messages. Once all the dust is settled – and a broad story is pieced together with honesty and archival rigour – Blood Brothers might remind you of the famous ESPN documentary, The Two Escobars. The comparison is more spiritual than literal. In both, truth and tragedy go hand in hand. In both, a community’s petty infighting takes precedence over the outward war. And in both, the FBI gleefully watches as its “enemies” self-destruct with the cameras on them.   It is to this documentary’s credit that even though neither of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X come out of this looking good, it is impossible to judge them through the lens of hindsight. It is not their fault that long after both of them rewrote history, history rewrote their roles in it. Being a people’s champion often brings with it the pressure to echo their most ardent desires. And much like the faces of Ali’s opponents and the speeches of Malcolm X, public desire is almost never pretty.   Blood Brothers: Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali is streaming on Netflix.