Tunde Johnson’s obituary
Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend delves into adjacent queer and queer headlines from the past that deserve a watch or re-watch.
The surrealist: the obituary of Tunde Johnson
We can’t say enough about our favorite movie from the 2019 Toronto Film Festival. Tunde Johnson’s obituary stars 13 Reasons Why’s Steven Silver as Tunde Johnson, the locked-up gay son of African immigrants. Although the strengths are unknown, Tunde relives the day of her own death over and over again, in the same vein as Groundhog Day. Worse, Tunde’s death seems inevitable no matter what choices he makes.
Silver delivers a fantastic, mature performance in the lead role, while supporting cast Spencer Neville (as Tunde’s boyfriend, Soren) and Nicola Peltz (as Soren’s girlfriend, Marley) also give solid turns. Support. Director Ali LeRoi directs with confident style, constructing the film more like a rhyming poem than a traditional narrative. The result has a surreal lyricism rarely seen in movies. For all the great work from LeRoi and his cast, the real protagonist here is screenwriter Stanley Kalu, who wrote the semi-autobiographical story. Tunde marks Kalu’s cinematic debut, in which he reveals himself as a convincing and provocative writer. While this film may be his first, we pray it won’t be his last.
Although Tunde Johnson’s Obituary debuted in 2019, it’s even more relevant today when the murder of unarmed African-American men took center stage in our cultural discourse. The film also makes subtle observations on masculinity, sexuality and coming out; while LGBTQ people are enjoying more visibility than ever before, that doesn’t mean getting out and joining the community just got easier. Provocative, prophetic and unique, we cannot recommend the film highly enough.
Streaming on Amazon, Hulu, YouTube and VUDU.
