Directed and written by Stacey Sargeant, “Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors,” which played in the Tribeca Festival’s shorts program, is a bit frustrating. At 7 minutes, the film states it is ‘based on real events’ — and I don’t doubt it. It’s not hard to believe. Covering Tribeca Festival for 3 days in New York, I rode the subway less than 10 times, and never during rush hour. It’s not hard to understand that people’s fuses are short and rudeness occurs. However, Sargeant’s film — which starts with the text, ‘this shit actually happened’ — doesn’t seem to live up to its advanced billing. A White woman who behaves rudely and expresses she’s having a bad day is used to make wider points about inclusivity and minority micro aggressions. The problem is I don’t feel it works as well as it should.
Our entry point to the film is Director Sargeant, playing ‘Black Woman,’ who boards a busy train and wants to sit down. She asks ‘White Woman,’ played by Grace Rex, to move her bag, who refuses. There’s still room to sit down, she insists, at which point the protagonist sits down, pushing her bag out of the way. White Woman the proceeds to passive-aggressively nudge Black Woman with her elbow. Granted, this is all very odd. The short inserts two ‘what I want to do’ montages in which Sargeant’s character first forcibly slaps the woman and then lets her fall behind her and starts squishing her face due to her irritation. Of course, neither of these happens. And when White Woman later apologizes, Black Woman listens but doesn’t absolve her. The whole time she shares the moment with another Black woman sitting across from her, played by Claudia Logan, as though this happens frequently and neither can believe it goes on.
A Film Hitting Specific Points
“Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors” is clearly trying to make points about the dismissive treatment Black women encounter (on the subway, but in society in general). However, I feel the film goes about it the wrong way. Black Woman’s imagined slap felt more aggressive and less earned than say, Carey Mulligan slamming her fist on the table and yelling at a toxic male harassing her in “She Said.” It was clear to me that White Woman was not only having a bad day, but likely had mental health issues. And I never got the impression that Rex’s character was acting out of racism but rather that she was unstable and thoughtless. But as Sargeant’s character had basically thrown her bag on the floor, it hit as a little much. And then later, as a third person sits down next to them and squishes them all together, Black Woman laughs, as if White Woman is finally getting what she has coming to her.
On the one hand, I realize that as a White male, I’m not the target audience for this film. On the other hand, I’ve watched and reviewed films about minority experiences I feel do a better job at letting outsiders understand the experience. For SXSW 2021, I watched and reviewed a powerful film called “Playing it Safe,” a film about a theater improv class. In that film the lead — a Black male — receives a flash card of a monkey as the animal he needs to imitate for the assignment. I instantly understood his experience and his struggle: do I make a thing of this of just go with it. And the powerful aspect was the White students in the class were likely unaffected by whatever animal they were given.
A Lack of Relatability Harms the Film
However, with “Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors,” I felt less connected to the experience. I felt — and saw — one woman being irritable and rude to another and then our central character being rude back. Sargeant is trying to let us know this is a common occurrence with Logan’s character, who shares knowing glances with the lead. But by cloaking her film in comedy along with some absurdism and exaggeration, I feel it robs it of its more salient points. Perhaps a montage of Sargeant’s character experiencing some of this stuff, or a different situation where we could understand better, would have made the film hit harder. Also, at 7 minutes the film feels too short, with more time needed to flesh out the subject matter.
As a result, “Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors” isn’t a bad film, just one likely written for a specific audience — Black women. It would have been nice to better understood the topic being displayed here, as it is an important one. Hopefully Sargeant’s next film will tackle similar themes while making them more relatable to a wider audience.
“Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors” had its world premiere at Tribeca Festival in the ‘Shorts: NY Making it Here’ category and was co-hosted by New York Women in Film and Television. Tribeca Festival ran from June 3-June 14th. Follow us for more coverage.
