 | Director Amma Asante tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle [played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw], who is mixed-raceb, a fact, which would normally have her removed from the ways and means of aristocrats in 18th century England, where slavery was still very much a part of life. |
| Director Amma Asante tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle [played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw], who is mixed-raceb, a fact, which would normally have her removed from the ways and means of aristocrats in 18th century England, where slavery was still very much a part of life. Indeed there are faint echoes of 12 Years a Slave in ‘Belle’ as Dido's story sees her stuck between a world of privilege and one of subservience as she displaying herself to be a woman of exceptional inner strength. "I am too high to eat with the servants, too low to join you at dinner!" | Mbatha-Raw is clearly a upcoming talent, superbly traversing her character's arc that sees a disenfranchised child become a lade of grace and dignity. The merging of race and gender issues are skillfully dealt with alongside the growing debate over slavery taking place in England at the time, with the subplot of the real-life case of the Zong massacre, in which over 140 slaves were dumped off a ship in order to collect the insurance money on them. |