‘Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project’ Review – An Unapologetic Life And Legacy

Near the start of Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, Nikki is outside the theater for a lecture and reading she’s about to give. She greets everyone in line, smiles, signs autographs, takes pictures, etc. This scene is immediately contrasted by Nikki, onstage at the event saying, “I’m not a friendly person.” Which is met with uproarious laughter. This sets the tone for the rest of Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s wonderful documentary on the magnetic, visionary, and unapologetic life and legacy of Nikki Giovanni.

What comes across instantly is how guarded Nikki is about her life story. She’s demure and shy when it comes to her accomplishments, going so far as to not even mention them throughout the film. Her place in literature, culture, and activism is secure, but she’s reluctant to engage in her own hype. Giovanni, now in her 80’s, and after having won the battle (and lost a breast) against cancer, finally feels comfortable enough to tell her story. Although it still feels like something she had to be convinced to do.

The film takes a unique approach, abandoning a talking heads style, and instead allowing Nikki to tell her story in her own words and from her own perspective. You imagine this is what made her say yes to the project. In this, no one else is interviewed about Nikki throughout the film. Anytime we hear from anyone else, it is in conversation, aside from a brief moment with Nikki’s granddaughter, Kai. What we learn from this film, however, is how fiercely independent Nikki is. There are moments when she’s openly defiant, challenges social tendencies, rejects cultural norms, and even opposes activist tactics among her fellow celebrity class. But Nikki doesn’t give a damn. As she so proudly states during one of her readings, “I have been blessed with the ability to not really care what people think.”

The film, in the way that it’s done, showcases both Nikki Giovanni – celebrated Poet Laureate, Nobel Prize Winner – and Nikki Giovanni – brash political revolutionary thinker who plays by her own rules – and makes you fall in love with both of them. When it comes to Nikki’s writing, the film colors in the stories around her work, which gives an added heft to Giovanni’s work, and helps us understand her writing process as well. In a particular moment in the film, Giovanni recalls writing a poem about Rosa Parks’s famous bus boycott, but relays that idea back to the murder of Emmett Till, and in her piece, she focuses instead on the Pullman Porters – Black men who were the service car caretakers for the trains going South. In this brilliant concept, we see Nikki’s distinctive way of seeing the world. Highlighting what to others may seem innocuous and make it vital. It’s moments like these that will send audiences scurrying to their nearest library or bookstore to take every Nikki Giovanni title home.

One other way the film subverts the typical documentary style is by infusing it with both archival footage and one particular conversation Nikki had with another talented black writer at the time, Mr. James Baldwin. We repeatedly return to this conversation as the two discuss issues of race, love, art, and more. It is a deeply profound conversation between two brilliant minds that also gives you a sense of who Giovanni is at that time, and what it is she wants out of life. This is contrasted by the woman we see today – Successful, respected, in love, healthy, and enjoying her family. This was filmed right around the time Nikki was promoting her book, A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter. We discover that Nikki didn’t cry much growing up, but here, we see her finally begin to let the tears go. Letting go of the pain and tragedy, but also embracing the love and laughter her life has been able to be full of, and all the love she has given to others.

“Going To Mars,” for Nikki, isn’t just some random saying for her. It is her fondest belief; that the love and nurturing nature of Black women will not only get us to Mars, but where they’d love the planet to life and bring about a new world for all of us. If that is the case, Ms. Nikki Giovanni, lead the way.

Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of HBO Documentary Films. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0xCXuMO7VI]