Earthy and elevated, sober and stoned, Khalik Allah's Black Mother is a tone poem whose sonic elements augment a lush and varied collection of images of Jamaica, the birthplace of Allah's mother. Full Review

A viscerally poetic portrait of a country that's full of contradictions. Full Review

An eternal nurturer, the black mother whom Allah dissects and praises in this transfixing hymn of a movie about the place where the woman that gave him life was born is far more than just a homeland but a direct link to the answers about existence. Full Review

[W]hat distinguishes the film is Allah’s superb eye and talent for portraiture...

The impression is of a dreamlike blend, some shots repeated, inspected at leisure with an implicit critique of colonial exploitation, contemporary sociopolitical circumstances, and gender inequality. Full Review

Rating: B -- Black Mother can at times feel nebulous, but the richness of lived experience that it captures, augmented by Allah's transportive gestures, are more than enough to compensate. Full Review

3 stars out of 4 -- Embossed with lyricism, spirituality, culture and history, New York photographer Khalik Allah’s gloriously experimental BLACK MOTHER is a vivid pictorial and philosophical journal dedicated to Jamaica, especially to its tough yet burdened women.