For most of its runtime, Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden’s fish-out-of-water non-fiction hybrid The Black Sea teeters on the edge of being too cute. But Harden is the variable––the lead performer whose dynamic with both actors and non-actors skirts the right side of the line between intuition and invention. It’s a line that’s also been the driving cinematic force of Moselle’s insider approach to the stories of outsiders. And throughout her career, one of her greatest skills has been her eye for not only the right story, but the right storytellers.
Harden plays Khalid (a loose version of Harden’s own persona), a magnetic Black Brooklynite who begins the film out of credit with everyone in the borough who’s lent him a dollar for a failed scheme. (As his irritated cousin aptly mutters on a FaceTime call, “I told you two times ago that was the last time.”) Out of opportunities, Khalid takes a one-way flight to a small coastal Bulgarian town after responding to a bizarre Facebook request that promises ten grand if this woman can “touch a Black man’s face.”
Inevitably that’s too good to be true: she dies before he arrives on her doorstep and her grieving son / small-town big-shot Georgi (Stoyo Mirkov) is shooing him out the door. Stuck in this new, extremely white town, Khalid lays on a charm offensive with locals who approach him with a mix of genuine curiosity and more than a little bit of exoticism. Khalid’s character is fearless and tenacious, and he asks anyone who offers him more than a passing glance for a job. And Harden plays him as a heart-of-gold opportunist, one who makes best friends everywhere he goes whether it’s in an alley pick-up game or with a discontented travel agent who takes pity on him.
With that readymade premise, Moselle and Harden lean into a freewheeling rhythm as Khalid becomes a fixture in town with a roundabout circuit of locals who also ease Khalid’s character into each new narrative development and improvised flight of fancy. Some of these beats could use a lighter, less-visible touch, but the central relationship focuses on Ina (Irmena Chichikova), the aforementioned travel agent. From their first interaction, they share a spark that transcends the one-sided lost-in-translation connections with other people in town that are always endearing but often shallow.
Moselle and DP Jackson Hunt also have a visual approach that’s a little too focused on that shagginess and intimate framing to make much of a larger impression. Compared to, say, this year’s Gasoline Rainbow, which was as much about the reflexive quotation marks around “non-fiction” as its content, The Black Sea lacks the formal conviction to push outside the boundaries of traditional storytelling, documentary or otherwise. At its best there are a variety of moments that feel lived-in and are just fun to watch, but those are also often just Harden shooting the shit with other characters.
The rest of the larger narrative arc also flirts with a feeling of straight-ahead cinematic artificiality––especially with some of the side characters like Georgi whose surly demeanor at first seems to cloak a more intriguing personality or a late character choice that feels like a forced conflict. It’s even more disappointing that the film seems to be distinctly aware of the mutually ethnocentric perceptions of both the Bulgarian people and Khalid, but that’s barely explored other than as a known texture of implicit racism. A sharper film would have engaged further with that culture clash dialogue; it largely becomes fodder for misunderstandings and coincidences that are too perfectly engineered to maintain its illusion of internal realism.
Despite such misgivings about an ultimately familiar shape, The Black Sea remains a thoroughly entertaining film that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Just as the case is with Betty, one could easily watch an entire series about a character like Khalid. If only the film around him wasn’t so enamored with telling this particular story.
The Black Sea is now in limited release.