Movie Review for BlackKlansMan, and a few musings on the power of storytelling
Kicking off my return to NOI, I review a movie that I've been invited to watch this week. I was interested in the subject and on the overall I thought the movie was well done and had good potential, but sadly a great deal of it was lost in over simplification of some core matters. Here's my two cents on BlackkKlansMan by Spike Lee.
Wow, seems like karma liked my motivation to return to a more regular schedule of posting on NOI, as well as the shift to more personal things going on in our life. So here comes my first movie review that isn't something I've re-watched! That's right, a very nice colleague of mine invited me to theater with her and I did not skip the opportunity. It's been too long since I went to theater - the last chance I had was for "Return of the Jedi", where again I was invited. Being poor sucks and movies are expensive over here so for a great of them I just wait until the DVD comes off or until they're streamed on our local TVs!
But now there was the opportunity and so after sharing a pizza, we set out to watch BlackKlansMan, Spike Lee's movie based on a true story. I had read something about the movie beforehand and the premises sounded interesting enough to hook me through the viewing. However, I feel some aspects could be handled differently for an even more powerful impact on the viewer.
The movie opens with Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) entering the Colorado Spring's police department as the first African-American cop. It's the '70s, so not only Ron's enrollment is seen as a daring experiments on behalf of his superiors but also as a "crazy", "irresponsible" choice by the still heavily racist majority of people, who feel threatened by the growing restlessness of the deeply ostracized black community. Unsurprisingly, Stallworth's beginnings are anything but easy.
Even among his own colleagues Ron meets prejudice and slander. We see as he puts up, as gracefully as he can, with a series of belittling tasks and taunts. Yet throughout the entirety of the movie he stays firm in his resolution to use his life as a mean to achieve something, to fight for the rights of the black community even though he's wearing a badge that does positively little to endear him to his fellow peers. Due to police being predominantly white, racist, violent, and corrupted, Ron must keep hush-hush about his job even with the young leader of the black students movement for which he eventually falls in love. I feel the movie did a great job portraying his inner fight and the contradictions which constantly threaten to tear his soul apart; he's proud of being a cop, yet ashamed and disgusted of what other cops all around him do. Likewise, he believes in his work, but is also keenly and painfully aware that the thin red line between protecting people and abusing thousands of dark skinned people who only want to see their rights recognized and respected, is liable to be crossed back and forth. His contempt for the predominant white-centric mindset really shines through Washington's acting.
The turning point in his career comes when his superiors move him to the Intel department. Here, Ron's inquisitive nature leads him to answer to a rather obscure newspaper ad, which brings him in touch with the secret, laying-low-yet-dangerously-bursting-with-activity, ominous remains of the Ku Klux Klan. Passing himself off for a white racist several times over, Ron eventually gets admitted into the Klan's inner circle. But while his brilliant telephone acting could buy over even the Klan's leader David Duke (played by Topher Grace), there's just no way he can waltz into the Klan's meetings as an insider to document their illegal plans - not while he's wearing his own face. This is where his white colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) comes into play.
Zimmerman is not any more beloved to the KKK due to his Jew heritage, but unlike Ron, he can actually disguise himself believably as a white supremacist and look the part. While at first he takes this as just another assignment, the sickening lack of consideration for minorities rights and lives that he surrounds himself with on a daily basis brings him to reacquaint with his origins, with the man these people would see him as, and with the kind of man he wants to be.
Driver's acting was very good - more convincing, IMHO, than his performance of Kylo Renn in the Stars Wars franchise. Flip is clearly a way more disillusioned and snide man than the steadfast Ron; earlier in the movie he remarks dryly "This is a mission for you, but for me? It's just part of the job. Don't drag me into your crusade, man." Yet he also shares a deep integrity of morals with his colleagues, and whenever he's around the KKK fanatics he's supposed to infiltrate, you can feel the barely restrained anger building up behind his every gesture and glance.
All in all, the movie works well from beginning to end. It has a pretty good pace, except for a somewhat slow start when Ron is first called to infiltrate a black gathering that his leaders fear could just be a covert to instigate rebellions and attacks. The dialogues are believable, if heart breaking whenever the Klan members are on screen, with their ruthless, gratuitous hatred of everything and everyone they perceive as "different". And when the tension picks up toward the latter part of the movie, it really picks up - you know these deranged madmen mean trouble, both for Ron and Flip and for the hundreds innocent victims of their vile machinations alike. The climax was gripping, especially after Ron throws away caution - and risks his own life - to save the woman he loves. And the finale managed to pack a good mix of laughs and "take that!" moments with some more hopeful notes.
But as Ron Stallworth's personal story wraps up, the movie still has one last punch up its sleeve. The scene changes to modern-day footage from manifestations, shootings and attacks which were justified by the white-centric mindset so predominant in the "Trump age". An excerpt from a recent interview with David Duke manages to be both disheartening and blood curling. It's like mankind really can't learn from its mistakes, and the '70s atmosphere of diffidence, fear and bottled up violence ready to explode suddenly looms brutally actual before the viewer's eyes. The US flag loses its colours and fades into a monochrome black, without any sort of sound effect or back score but a deadly silence -. almost prophetizing of horrors yet to come. I feel this was possibly the greatest height of the movie and the bravest moment in a script that wanted to some make very good point... but, sadly, didn't always hit the mark. At least to my eyes.
What's my problem with BlackkKlansMan? While I acknowledge that a lot of work went into this movie and in general approve what Spike Lee tried to say with it, I feel that its core message also runs the risk of being severely misunderstood. And that's mostly because of what seems to be its biggest flaw; for such an ambitious story, it's a bit too simplified, morally and conceptually.
Spike Lee tries to warn viewers of the dangers of hate with a representation of the brewing underground tensions between black and white community; on one side we have the angry students and protesters who want to get their rights acknowledged, who despise the corruption of the government and are ready to fight for their place in the world, opposed to the fanatic rambling of a few exalted morons who would happily wipe out of existence whoever they don't deem "worthy" of being alive. Much emphasis is placed on how the black community has reached the breaking point where they're ready to give back as good as they get; this parallel is especially shown in the sequence of the students gathering, in which the horrors of segregation and racism are put in the spotlight, juxtaposed to Flip's "initiation" as a full KKK affiliate, which in itself is the culmination of Duke's visit to Colorado Springs. Both factions hold a bitter grudge against each other, and the black students indignation is threatening to turn into full blown agitation and rebellion, which could take them on the same path of hate from which the crimes of their persecutors have arisen. The oxymoron that Lee wanted to show in this sequence is the devastating nature of hate, which can at a time unite while exasperating differences and separation.
But it's way too simple to just preach to "not hate", and it's especially jarring in the case of this movie. Because the black populace in the '70s, just as well as today, had every reason to hate their white oppressors. Black men and women were brought in the United States as slaves, treated like animals and things, deprived of even the most basic rights, denied even to consider themselves human beings. They were subjected to tortures, humiliations and violence which at the time were considered totally legalized. Yes, many of them came to hate the whites just as much as Klan members hated blacks, Jews and anyone who didn't fit their schemes of things - but in the blacks case it was with fully justified reasons! Likely the parents, or even grandparents of those students portrayed in the movie had been rejects or children of rejects, maybe they had even had relatives of friends killed in cold blood because their only crime was being born with a "different" skin tone. That they'd eventually be pushed to the point of lashing back - even violently, and without excusing violence for violence's sake - is far more the white's responsibilities than theirs.
It's not a wrong message, what the movie wants to convey; and surely the intent behind this choice of sequences is a noble one. But I fear, especially to the light of some recent events with a very close minded person I know IRL, that it might fall on deaf ears at best or be misunderstood at worst. It's far too easy for prejudiced people to read Spike Lee's movie as a warning against the danger that the pent-up anger of the black people can represent; extrapolated from the movie context, and warped to fit a white-centric ideology, even the entirely rightful fervor of Patrice (Ron's love interest, whose concept was visually inspired by the activitist Angela Davies) can make her seem as emotionally unbalanced as the Klan criminals. But Patrice is not unbalanced. She's an angry young woman who has been hurt in her life, who grew up in fear and ultimately decided that she didn't want to be afraid any more and show teeth. Any parallel drawn between her driving motives and the blind hatred of the Klan is... not "poor" writing, but way, way too washed down and explained away. "They did terrible things to her so she became in turn moody and vengeful" - nevermind that she actually comes from a faction that's been enslaved and oppressed for centuries, and who never had a said in its existence. This is where the film fell flat for me. In many ways, the dichotomy reminded me of a line in "Pearl Harbor" where a character spoke of the American army as a sleeping giant that had been awoken, and I felt the representation of the black community in "BlackkKlansman" aimed to the same goal. But they were - they are, even in present day - much more than an outraged bunch of people who have been wronged. They are the product of a mindset that has entitled horrors which should never be allowed to happen again. It's a revolt that the movie shows, alright - but it's the revolt of a victim against its torturer, not against two factions squaring off the same level ground. Because there was never a "same" ground to start from. The odds were never even and they're not even still - especially today.
Don't get me wrong, it was a difficult concept to convey on screen, and the movie's story already stretched to a considerable length as it was. Packing a more complex discourse on just how things got so bad - from the '70 to the present day - would have been one Herculean task. But I believe that Spike Lee's movie deserved the extra effort. Especially because the final footage went a long way toward denouncing where the US (and the world at large) are headed, and it was just a pity that it came at the end of a movie that was ultimately very good but handled its core concept in such a cheap way.
I have some other minor gripes about "BlackkKlansMan". Flip's character, despite the very intense acting of Adam Driver, could probably have been expanded more. We hear a lot of what's going through his head, but how it affects his life is always told, not shown. It would have been interesting to watch him deal with the aftermath of the ever growing unease he felt around the Klansmen. Again, his character was interesting and written as complex, but as the end credits rolled in I was left with the feeling there was much more to Flip than what the movie bothered to show. Also, a side plot featuring Patrice and some harassment she received by the hand of a very corrupt and chauvinist colleague of Ron's was resolved too neatly and purely for laughs in the final sequences.
I can't say that "BlackkKlansMan" is a bad film - it's not, at least in my opinion. I'd probably watch it again if it aired on TV. And I can still recommend it - but only tentatively. If you have your facts straight and can look back on history from an objective stance, then you might enjoy it. It's not a kolossal - but it casts light on an interesting story of self-worth and fight for one's beliefs, the actors are good, and the story delivers both thrills, laughs and feels. However, considering the subject of the movie, I'm afraid this kind of target might be just its attempt to "preach to the choir" - and in other circles it might just be misread, perhaps even dangerously so.
Perhaps "BlackkKlansMan" was an overachiever of a movie and I'll give it props for trying hard. It's not horrible - I just felt that with more drive, and the same boldness it showed in the finale, it could have been the bomb it promised to be.
My score for this one is 7 1/2+ on 10 (although I'm tempted to round it to a full 8/10 for the chills the ending sent down my spine).
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