Watching this in a totally white audience was an experience. The little titters and nudges when 'make america great again' was mentioned, or about police officers shooting unarmed black people, or even one becoming president; to the we won mentality at the final phone call.
Then the deathly silence with the current footage being shown. I think quite a few people realised it's not just references.
These people still exist today.
They still have their rallies.
They still have their marches.
They still murder in uniform.
And they still hold these abhorrent views.
I think I even heard some people sniff away some tears right at the end once they saw the footage and heard the words of people who were there.
Enjoy the film; enjoy the jokes (it is a funny film) but make no doubt the characters shown still exist.
BlacKkKlansman is an undercover film, because beneath its brilliant sheet of light-hearted biopic lurks a dark satire of racism, all lives matter and Trumpism. It will sneak up on you with its dated 70's feel and then grab you with its arresting pertinence to contemporary issues. Watch this film or be doomed to repeat it.
BlacKkKlansman is so good that I forgot it was a Spike Lee film. More seriously, it even outshines 2006's Inside Man and the closing newsreel sequence literally had me sobbing in the cinema (my over-the-top emotional responses are just one of the many reasons I always sit in the front row). Not only one of the best films of the year, this is clearly the most important film of the year.
Wait. What!? WTF did I just watch?
Here's what I was thinking, in order, as I watched this movie:
1. Not enough Harley
2. Slow
3. Not enough Harley
4. For an action movie, this is much too sedate
5. Not enough Harley
6. Boring plot. In fact...what is the plot?
7. Ok, Harley escapes and kicks ass to Louis Prima. Sweet!
8. Remind me again what the plot is?
9. Damn, still another hour to go
10. Remind me again what the plot is?
11. Oh. Right. A giant bubble gum coloured starfish cyclops...and some rats.
12. Wait, wasn't that Peter Capaldi earlier with the crayons sticking out of his head?
13. When did this become a Doctor Who movie?
14. Hang on, Bill the Cat wasn't a DC character!!!
14. WTF?!?!?
You will not find a more vile or offensive piece of anti-abortion propaganda out there. I don’t know how accurate this is, but apparently, the actors weren’t shown the entire script during production, but when they got their hands on it, they dropped out really fast. They didn’t know what they were involved in. Talk about propaganda.
Nick, man...you’ve gone on record saying you tried to portray both sides of the argument, and sure...time was given to both the pro-choice and pro-life sides, but it’s told through the veil of someone who sees pro-choicers as satan’s army. They are the “bad guys” so to speak. The entire atmosphere when they show up on screen is pretty menacing. Overbearingly so, and the pro-lifers are always seen with that soft, acoustic, innocent music...as they are all these angelic do-gooders, and with any good pro-life persuasion essay, you had to use the smoking gun of the argument, and went all out with shots of unnecessary gore. Here’s the thing. Abortion is not fun. It’s not supposed to be. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. It’s also not supposed to be pretty. Heck, pregnancy and giving birth is also rather gory. Have even SEEN a placenta come out of a woman’s body? Well, I have. And I thought it was a liver and was appalled that doctors and nurses were casually removing it from my wife’s body!
The website for this film has a fact-checking list of things that did and did not happen in real life, and while I went through the list, I don’t think any of it is important. I never questioned what happened, that’s all well-documented. I just didn’t see it as menacing or malicious. One, politics are crooked with literally everything they do. I expect nothing less, but two...when these politicians went all out to try to suade the vote to pro-choice...I didn’t see that as deceit. I saw that as a vigilante act of someone trying to do what’s right for someone other than themselves.
Another thing...there is so much unnecessary exposition in this film. The director narrates everything, sometimes for no reason. Like, you see the supreme court justices voting on the case, and then the director narrates it by saying, and that's how they voted. I KNOW, MAN....I'm watching the movie, so I saw them do it, and this happens constantly, and I felt like I was being talked down to, like I was too dumb to understand the details of the scene. Let the scene flow organically. Tell the story, but don't go overboard.
And this is the last thing that I have to say, but probably most important. Any film on Roe v Wade or abortion AT ALL should only be written and directed by a female, NOT a conservative male. That is the last thing a story like this needs, and that’s exactly what we have in Roe v Wade. Even though I was born and spent half my life as a pro-lifer…I changed once I stopped thinking about myself – and I’ve come a long way...but no matter how far I go from now until the day I die, I will never be able to understand this topic as much as a woman would. Which is why a man should never direct a movie on abortion. No matter your political stance on it.
So, yeah.. I tried to be as professional and technical as possible, but guys...people watch film with bias. You can’t get away from it, and in this case, bias effects you more than anything else.
Stay away
It’s time to play: Where Have I Seen This Story Before?
A bearded young man in old-timey times has a distant relationship with his kingly father figure, who expects great things of him. He’s in a state of arrested development and lives with his widowed mother, while his “official” father is never mentioned. The woman he has feelings for wears a lot of jingling bells; she’s a sex worker so they can never actually be together, as that would be bad for his image and the example he’s supposed to set. The young man has a terrible destiny thrust upon him: he must journey forth to die in a set time and place, and if he doesn’t accept that he will lose his integrity and betray the message of his “father” for his people.
For a week the young man suffers physically, mentally, and spiritually, as he struggles with temptation in the forms of sex, selfishness, violence, and talking animals giving him enigmatic messages. He arrives at the place of his doom, prepared to give up his life…then he says “fuck this” and escapes. We see him flee home and live out his life over decades, time skipping faster and faster in a montage. He takes up the adult responsibilities of his father’s business and tries to bury his sense of shame. He gets back with the sex worker but “loses” her when she gives birth. He marries another woman and has a child with her, even if she isn’t the love of his life. He grows old as his world falls apart. Before his delayed death, he is confronted with the knowledge that his weakness and refusal to fulfil his destiny destroyed his “father’s” promised kingdom.
And then he snaps back to the moment before we saw him flee. This was all a vision of his future if he cowers from his sacrificial death. He submits to his execution and smiles as the movie ends.
Although this protagonist survives, I think David Lowery owes Martin Scorsese and the estate of Nikos Kazantzakis some money. This was gorgeous to look at and listen to, Dev Patel was spectacular as usual, so two stars for that. You know what I don’t need in my Dark ‘n’ Gritty King Arthur movie? Semen! I had to endure that scene next to my dad! I’m an Arthurian Legend nerd who accepts all kinds of varying iterations of “The Matter of Britain”. But somehow this adaptation had thinner characterization, relationships, story structure, and motivation than the medieval poem, where Gawain wimping out from his quest, like Brave Sir Robin Who Had Nearly Stood Up to the Vicious Chicken of Bristol, is treated as a joke that everyone gets over.
Speaking of Willem Dafoe movies, in the Year of Our Lord 2021, you can’t include a raspy-human-voiced fox in your film and expect me to take it seriously (and not whisper “chaos…reigns!”).
You cannot run in ski boots
