Raw grief pulses through Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Sometimes, it seeps in like a ghostly presence—-visible in unshed tears, wry smiles and cryptic conversations—-and sometimes it bursts through, like furious bile, or just swallows a person whole.
A respectful, yet heart-breaking tribute to Chadwick Boseman, the original Black Panther, the film does not attempt to ‘replace’ him in any way and honours his legacy with sensitivity and without an attempt at mawkish manipulation. After leading the first Black Panther with such charisma and winsomeness, his absence feels searing, and the real emotions of the actors soak the film, twisting the knife further. It is also a lesson in learning that grief does not comprise of five stages contrary to the common and trite belief; it’s never a linear process. This is possibly the first time a Marvel film showed the deep complexities and turbulence of grief, and the many forms it assumes. The films in the past decade have usually been rather off-hand about it, made light of it, even though most of the heroes have lost countless loved ones. It was briefly touched upon in Endgame, and seen in WandaVision, but that’s as far as it goes before Marvel-esque humour takes over. However, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever confronts the herculean task of melding a real tragedy on screen, and serves as an eulogy to the late Chadwick Boseman, whose sudden death after a private battle with cancer in 2020 left behind a legion of devastated family, friends and fans.
The path to acceptance and farewells can be a precarious, uncomfortable rocky path and Letitia Wright’s Shuri undertakes this journey. Shuri is immersed in the lab as a coping mechanism, to prevent herself from oscillating between grief and guilt over losing her brother. But for once, this is not Marvel’s method of evading the ugliness of loss—the strain, and exhaustion is etched in Shuri’s expressions. His death has left a gaping wound, and if she were to dwell further in it, she would ‘burn the world down’, as she tells her mother, Angela Bassett’s Queen Ramonda. Shuri hovers between a plane of unprocessed devastation and denial, while her mother struggles to reconstruct her own world again. It’s a world of grieving women—-Shuri, Ramonda, Nakia and Okoye, and they do run the world, with T’Challa’s spirit by their side.
Ramonda herself, is battling too much on every possible front—the death of her son, the politicised attacks on Wakanda and later the abduction of her daughter by Namor, a man who threatens to bring her homeland to its knees. Ramonda says few words, but the anguished words to Okoye after Shuri is taken, shows a woman, rattled by the thought of being bereft of her only remaining family. Nakia has avoided Wakanda and is settled in Haiti, as the memories of T’Challa are too haunting for her. Yet, Shuri and Ramonda shine the most in the film, exuding power in every scene.
Grief renders people unrecognisable. It tears Shuri from inside after she loses ‘the last person who knew her well’. She is consumed by bitterness and vengeance and she doesn’t wish to be noble like her brother, but instead follow the path of bloodlust. Finally, the congealed and messy emotions that she had been suppressing, implode, the closest to one how one would feel in real life. Her loved ones are all dead—a part of her has died with them as she believes. Consolation and comforting words are of no use to her; it’s the time for action. She is now hardened as she is ready to destroy the underwater empire, headed by Namor (a superb Tenoch Huerta) and finally, after the battle, she realises that more blood is never the answer. While this conclusion was expected, it was riveting to see her path to this understanding. At the end of the film, she just quietly remembers her moments with T’Challa, and sheds tears. The film drives home that healing is an abominably messy process and there might never be complete closure, but you can just come close to a rather broken and resigned acceptance, the stage of grief that no one really talks about.
This was far more gut-wrenching, compared to Spider-Man: No Way Home after the death of Aunt May. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker demand for revenge was far less convincing than Shuri’s and felt rather flat in the final moments of the film. Perhaps it was partly because the storytelling itself had been so muddled, with misplaced humour and cameos rolled into it, and all culminated into a typical Marvel-like showdown. Spider-Man trying to kill the Green Goblin did not drive home the same impact that Shuri wanting to murder Namor did. Shuri’s rage and fury feels visceral and her dry sobs are piercing.
How does one place Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in the MCU? It feels a disservice to note it as a superhero blockbuster; because it is so much more. The film itself feels entirely too nuanced, layered to belong in the MCU—ranging from Namor, the antagonist (the word villain doesn’t fit here) a mutant with an underwater empire, who loves his people deeply, to the various internal and external battles of the Wakandans. In this mix, there’s twisted politics at play as well, as the US is ready to turn on the African country quickly. Even the humour isn’t the typical staid Marvel joke that you can predict before the characters utter them—M’Baku and Okoye take the lead here, with their deadpan quips. The action sequences are riveting, especially Shuri’s bike chase scene as well as the final battle when she decides to become Black Panther.
Black Panther Wakanda Forever is many things. It’s a heart-wrenching ode. It’s also about love, loss and recovery. It’s the struggle to reconstruct a world again with broken pieces. It’s about letting go, just little by little, because all at once is painfully impossible.