“Bob Marley: One Love”: a story of violence about the singer who always sought peace

Under the cover of night, seven men break into a house in Jamaica without warning. A first shot booms, knocking Rita Marley down with a bullet to the head. The gunmen continue on their way until they meet Bob Marley and their manager, Don Taylor, who are gunned down while the rest of the musicians flee or hide where they can. In total, 87 bullets were fired that night, one of which found its target in the chest of the iconic reggae singer. Despite the severity of the injuries, none of them die.

Two days after the attack, Marley offers a concert with an idea in mind. “People who are trying to make this world worse don’t take a day off, how could I?”. However, fearing another similar incident, he migrates to London, where he creates the album considered by Time magazine as one of the best albums of the 20th century: “Exodus” (1977).

While Marley achieved great popularity and international recognition, the island was inundated by violence, pitting ruling parties against the opposition, socialists against capitalists and factions of gangsters hired by both political groups. Ironically, the first step towards peace would be taken by criminal leaders Claudius “Claudie” Massop and Aston “Bucky” Marshall, who met after being imprisoned in the same cell, agreeing only on the idea that music was the way to achieve peace. harmony in Jamaica.

Peace in the underworld would be signed in January 1978, with a handshake at the intersection where the territories of both gangs were delimited, thus consolidating the idea of ​​a concert that went down in history under the name of “One Love Peace.” Concerts” – an event that inspires the title of the new film about the singer –, which brought together artists who appealed for the peace that was being built. Although a key piece was missing: Bob Marley, who after being visited in London by Massop, agreed to return to his homeland.

The singer returned to Kingston in April 1978 to lead the remembered “One Love Peace Concerts”, held at the National Stadium in Kingston, where he managed to bring, in front of more than 35 thousand Jamaicans, political rivals Michael Manley and Edward Seaga join your hands, as Marley pronounces: “Love, prosperity, stay with us. Jah, Rastafari, Selassie I.” Words that disappeared shortly after, after being overshadowed by a new wave of violence on the island that ends the lives of Massop and Marshall.

Revive a legend

How to embody the man who faces political enemies and survives the impact of a bullet aimed at his heart? Kingsley Ben-Adir (“Barbie”) takes on the challenge, along with Lashana Lynch (“Captain Marvel”), of giving life to what is considered the first great star of the “third world” in this new film directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (“ King Richard”), and written by Terence Winter (“The Wolf of Wall Street”), which is hated by critics, but loved by the box office.

After playing Malcolm ” ―also called “Bob Marley: The Legend”― the stage that the Rastafarian leader lived from the attack in 1976 until his return to Jamaica in 1978, and the subsequent diagnosis of cancer, focusing its focus on the singer’s message rather than on character.

The landscape portrayed in the film shows us the antithesis of the Jamaican stereotype: an island that represents the Caribbean paradise and the preferred destination for family vacations. Consequently, the atmosphere is permeated with disorder and the struggle between the small possibility of peace that Marley offers and the absolute chaos that the political representatives offer, although the latter do not appear directly in the film.

Unlike its predecessor “Marley” (2012), this film, which leads the US billboard for the second consecutive week, is not similar to recent similar films that show the lives of artists such as Jim Morrison played by Val Kilmer or Freddie Mercury by Rami Malek. Instead, he prefers to be faithful to the humility that characterized Marley, remaining as a standard biopic.