Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS Is the Most Beautiful Film of our Times by Charles Mudede Kahlil Joseph is famous for his role in Beyonce’s Lemonade, and directing music videos for Flying Lotus and Shabazz Palaces. He was born in Seattle , and is known for images that are in every way bold, cosmic, and dusky. In this regard, he is very much in the Terrence Malick camp.  His new film BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, which was shot by Bradford Young (Arrival, Selma) is beautiful from start to finish. The music (techno, house, hip-hop, sacred minimalism), the images (sometimes raw, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes grainy, sometimes cinematic, sometimes surreal), and the remixed sequences (in turn a documentary, a reenactment, a work of science fiction) combine to generate an effect that’s hard to describe in non-poetic language.  True, the dots that connect his approach to neo-pan-Africanism (Blacks in the US, UK, Africa, South America; Blacks in the past, present, and future) are all there and recognizable, but what one sees, scene after scene, transcends the political and cultural program. We seem to leave the planet and end up somewhere above the stratosphere, and, as we float, look back at the Earth with a feeling of pure wonder.  The science fiction section of the film, however, gripped me the most. It’s clearly based on the aquatic mythology of Detroit’s techno duo Drexiya. We see an oddly shaped cruise ship that moves slightly above the water. It crosses the ocean as it crosses the history of the Middle Passage. There is some intrigue on this cruise ship, and now and then it erupts in a dusky cabin or on the deck. Somehow, the key to all of this intrigue is an encyclopedia on all things African that the Black sociologist W.E.B Bu Bois imagined in 1909, but never completed. BLKNWS is the dream of that encyclopedia. Do not make the mistake of missing this film. BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions screens at SIFF Film Center on Jan 31 and Feb 1.  ...read more read less