THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY8, 2021 9
ILLUSTRATION BY LAURA LANNES
“The Messenger,” from Spotify, explores the life and work of the thirty-
eight-year-old Ugandan musician, activist, and parliament member known
as Bobi Wine, whose campaign to unseat Uganda’s longtime strongman
President, Yoweri Museveni, has led to a people-power movement, protests,
and violent crackdowns in Uganda, drawing the attention of Western en-
tities from NPR to Brian Eno. Hosted by the Sudanese-American rapper
Bas, who also wrote the warmly appealing theme music, the series elegantly
weaves together Bobi Wine’s story (growing up in the slums of Kampala,
meeting his future wife at theatre camp, undergoing a political awaken-
ing, surviving state-sanctioned violence) with context about the legacy of
British colonialism in Uganda and African musician-activists such as Fela
Kuti. Musically rich and compellingly listenable, it’s full of good tape from
memorable characters and questions about celebrity, art, populism, politics,
and power. “If you have fame, what responsibility do you have to use that
for the people?” Bas asks. “How far should you be willing to go?” In January,
Museveni was declared the winner of the Presidential election, Wine con-
tested the results, and Ugandan security forces surrounded his house; the
series concludes in February, with whatever happens next.—Sarah Larson
PODCASTDEPT.
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PODCASTS
Chicano Squad
This podcast, from Frequency Machine and
Vox Media, explores a little-known chapter in
the history of American justice—that of a team
of five young Latino homicide detectives in the
Houston Police Department during the late
seventies, who were tasked with a daunting
Spanish-language caseload amid a volatile
climate of anti-Mexican bigotry and police vi-
olence. Narrated by the actor Cristela Alonzo
(“Cars 3”), the series beautifully situates its
narrative in time and space, opening with
vivid stories about a melee at a Cinco de Mayo
celebration in 1978 and agitation over the 1977
murder of José Campos Torres, a Vietnam
veteran, by Houston police. Though marred
by occasional off notes, the writing, narra-
tion, and production include color and humor
(“Everybody used to go skinny-dippin’ in the
bayou,” a local says. “Come on, now!”) that
give a serious story warmth and recognizable
human texture, à la “The Wire.”—Sarah Larson
Ghost Town(ing)
“You can’t eat the view, but you can’t live
without it,” a resident of Walden, Colorado,
says in “Ghost Town(ing),” the new season of
“The Modern West,” from Wyoming Public
Media and PRX. The speaker is the father of
the series’ host and senior producer, Melodie
Edwards; he has worked locally in timber, oil,
and fly-fishing supplies, but these days work is
scarce. Edwards explores boom-and-bust cy-
cles in Walden and other rural towns, and the
phenomenon of Western ghost towning in the
context of history, the ethos and myths of the
American West, the personalities that gravi-
tate there, and the economic forces that buffet
it. (Today, these include the whims of the
super-rich, as when an Oklahoma businessman
buys up much of Walden’s Main Street and
then neglects it.) It’s a vivid, engaging series,
enlivened by memorable details: moose hunts,
dance halls, an old-timer who rides his horse
into a saloon.—S.L.
Dance Theatre of Harlem
The company restarts its digital platform,
DTH on Demand, on Feb. 6, with “Passage.”
Choreographed by Claudia Schreier to a
commissioned score by Jessie Montgomery,
the work was made for the 2019 Virginia Arts
Festival, which marked the four-hundredth
anniversary of the arrival of Africans in British
North America. Schreier handles the subject
abstractly, with a watery yet tidy depiction of
collective struggle as it ebbs and flows, falls
and rises.—B.S. (dancetheatreofharlem.org/
dthondemand)
Martha Graham Dance Company
This month, the company’s digital offerings
focus on recent additions to the repertory—
works inspired by Graham rather than made
by her. On Feb. 6, the selection is “Deo,” a
2019 effort by Maxine Doyle, a creator of
“Sleep No More,” and Bobbi Jene Smith, a
former Batsheva dancer who’s lately become
a sought-after choreographer. Drawing on
Graham’s interest in Greek myths, the dance,
for an all-female ensemble, mines the story
of Demeter and Persephone for vivid images
of mortality, grief, mothers, and daughters,
embodied in an uninhibited, highly sensual
style.—B.S. (marthagraham.org)
The Washington Ballet
As the pandemic has worn on, companies
have come up with ways to safely convene
small groups of dancers to make new work,
mostly for digital consumption. The latest
edition of the Washington Ballet’s “Create in
Place,” shown on Marquee TV, includes two
such ballets, in-house creations by dancers
on the company roster, filmed in beautiful
outdoor spaces near Washington, D.C., and
performed by members of both the studio
company (made up of younger dancers) and
the main ensemble. “Womb of Heaven” was
inspired by Yuval Noah Harari’s best-selling
exploration of the ins and outs of our species,
“Sapiens.” “Something Human” touches on
everyday behavior and the mundane ways
in which people pursue happiness.—Marina
Harss (marquee.tv)
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MOVIES
By the Sea
Romantic doom hangs heavy in the sun-
streaked, blue-tinged air of the Mediterra-
nean coast in this 2015 erotic melodrama, set
in the early nineteen-seventies, written and
directed by Angelina Jolie. She and Brad Pitt
play a married couple, Vanessa and Roland
Bertrand, who are troubled New York artists.
A retired dancer, Vanessa now spends her
time berating Roland, a famed but blocked
writer, for the sake of whose inspiration they
take a seaside hotel room in France for the
summer. There, they become obsessed with
a newlywed couple (Mélanie Laurent and
Melvil Poupaud), whom they drag into their
reckless sexual games. Working with the cin-
ematographer Christian Berger, Jolie frames
the actors in locked-down, off-balance images
that evoke wide-eyed terror at the movie’s
voracious cruelty as well as its confessional
agonies. Although the actors aren’t unhinged
enough for the scathing conceit, and the script
