Black Snake Moan: A ‘Poontang’s’ Journey to Enlightenment
Black
Snake Moan is directed by Craig Brewer. With this simple item of information,
we come upon expectations of boldly vulgarized instincts already looming on the
horizon. After all, Brewer co-wrote the
script and screenplay for The Legend of
Tarzan, and directed Hustle and Flow,
a movie about a pimp attempting to become a rapper. Black Snake Moan is starred by Samuel
L. Jackson (Lazarus Redd), who learned the guitar for this role, as well as
Christina Ricci (Rae Doole), and a very wimpy Justin Timberlake, which we hope
he has learned for his role as well, as Ronnie Morgan. Sure enough, with their spot-on performances,
Black Snake Moan slowly unfolds into
a story about instincts gone wild, or perhaps nature taking its course: it is
up to the viewer to decide.
In essence, the
movie has two beginnings. While
encountering the first, we cannot help but be reminded of that time during the
aftershock of 9/11, when news broadcasts started to call rappers to state their
take on the issue. So, and in the spirit
of unqualified counselling, we begin Black Snake Moan with a stuttering
musician, a very ironic thing in and of itself, who wisely counsels that the
only real blues is between a man and a woman in love, in an appropriately black
and white footage. While this does construe the blues as sexually possessed,
and generally uninvolved in the wider human experience, it happens to make a
perfect fit for Black Snake Moan: A movie about chasing a renegade beaver as it
wreaks havoc in town.
The movie
starts with Ronnie leaving for his outpost in the U.S. army, that he has
willingly volunteered for. Ironically,
this army volunteer niche is sometimes deemed as the male equivalent of
"fuck it, I'll just be a stripper!"
While Ronnie leaves to assert the dominance of the pack, Rae has to come
to terms with her sexual addiction, which she does by sleeping around (a
lot). Meanwhile, Lazarus is going
through a divorce. He and Rae meet in an
unusual way, and Lazarus decides to take extreme measures in order to stop her
sex addiction.
The movie is
unpredictable. The script shamelessly
announces itself to be filled with crazy people, and it gets to the point
where, if only for the sake of consistency, we begin to scorn any behavior that
could loosely be associated with healthy, socially-prevalent mannerisms. As such, the viewer is more than welcome to
give up on common sense altogether and surrender themselves to the ride. This would not be a bad decision. With humor running abundant throughout its
countryside, Black Snake Moan makes
for a crazy fun-time. The dynamics
between Lazarus and Rae are very well executed.
Rae's character is aggressive and fearless, except she's up against a
farmer almost twice her size. In turn, Lazarus
wants to do well by Christ by rescuing Rae, and to use everything at his
disposal for that end. The unusual man
ends up with a very creative method for achieving this contradiction between
his will to help and his unwillingness to use force against the rowdy
girl. From here on, the story is born through
a sequence of bizarre events.
Black Snake
Moan is a countryside movie minding its own business. There is not a single shot outside the
countryside setting. No airplanes, no
skyscrapers, and certainly no superhero demigods with laser beams and bat signals. In the decade of superhero movies, Brewer's
work consistently proceeds without making claim to grandiose affairs. This also persists through the lack of
special visual effects. The journey is
as real as it looks, yet it remains stunningly unbelievable. The blues music plays throughout the movie to
give an ambience of simplicity, almost marking the commonality of the
characters' struggles. The cords strike
true, it seems, simply because all of the characters suffer from very plausible
woes. The prevailing use of the American
countryside as a conduit for Hollywood’s horror movies has taken its toll on
the American simple life. As such, Black
Snake Moan, with its humanizing problems, provides for a most welcome
change of pace. "The farm" is
redeemed, and it's hilarious.
The dialogue
itself works on two dichotomous layers, and for every conversation we find an
undertone that contradicts the overt message. Whether it's Rae protesting Lazarus'
most welcome offer for help, or Reverend R.L fighting Lazarus for his
unorthodox ways, this consistent dichotomy can be summarized as follows: "I'm angry with you (thanks for helping
me)," and "I'm angry with you (I'm glad I could help)." However, this is an exclusive club, as the
side characters are flat out dumb and uninteresting. If you are a fellow believer in the
countryside as a victim of questionable representation in cinema, get ready for
a line of side characters who are one-dimensional, dumb, violent, and
potty-mouthed.
One image,
however, seems exceptionally out of place in this movie: Two black girls, one fanning her face with
the lower half of her dress as the other twerks to blues music... In particular, the image of the young woman
with the dress is not related to the movie in any way. If anything, it could only belong to some
would-be orgiastic scene from a comic porn cartoon, perhaps after all the
partying is over. If it is meant to
indicate some form of carefree festivity, there must have been plenty of other
ways to do so, mainly because Black Snake Moan is not vulgar at
all. Truly, despite the punching and
bleeding and swearing, everything is lit in such exquisite ways as to show the
bodies in their natural human form. None
of the actors does arbitrary unorthodox moves just because they can. Other than this particular image, however,
the movie is pretty much consistent.
The best
performances come from Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci. Samuel L. Jackson perfected the classic
performance of a weary character who has no choice but to participate in a
lengthy argument that he could do without. At times he takes his eyes off the
people he's addressing when trying to make a point, and his body language, when
seated, conveys his distress to a great extent.
Christina Ricci, on the other hand, gets to display a more varied range
of emotions. She performs the role of
the sex addict in a very convincing way, even if you haven't seen one before,
and easily fluctuates from the "screw you" look, often with a
cigarette in hand, to the regressive daughter who simply enjoys being spoiled
by a father figure. That being said, her
southerner's accent is not always spot on.
Our favorite
scene occurs very early in the movie. Lazarus
and his wife are arguing inside a run off the mill countryside cafe. The classy suits they wear are put in
contrast to the prevailing attitude and subject matter of the discussion. The best moment is when Rose, wife to Lazarus,
says something that makes all the people around them stop and stare, even
though she hasn't raised her tone of voice.
In such a small restaurant, where everyone could hear them, everybody has
been acting like they weren’t paying attention.
However, their reaction when Rose escalates her lingo puts the whole act
to rest. This conveys the small town dynamics perfectly well. Everyone has been listening, attentively so,
and is ready to gossip about the topic (just like this, the review does its
share of denigrating the countryside!)
The scene also reveals much about Lazarus’s character, who considers the
subject matter of the discussion as part of the "divine plan," yet
explicitly asks God to curse his wife for cheating on him. In essence, he blames her for this badly
written chapter of his divine plan. Lazarus
is introduced here as intense and inconsistent.
Surely, if Rose’s marital infidelity is predetermined by God, then he
cannot blame her for anything. But go
look for consistency with Lazarus... It
is no surprise, then, that Lazarus' way of talking to Reverend R.L. always
conveys a love-and-hate relationship with the divine. The dialogue with Rose is intriguing. It reveals a classic relationship
miscommunication, where Rose has been quiet about her discontentment for a
very, very long time. She chose to let
it all bottle-up inside of her instead of openly communicating her thoughts,
until her scorn has reached the point where she had been irrationally choking
herself for years. Lazarus stands at the
receiving end of that canon. The
prolonged secrecy of Rose's dissatisfaction is revealed all of a sudden, so
that Lazarus is struck with disbelief.
This disbelief seems to be implicit every time he talks about the
subject. He feels betrayed. It is interesting that Lazarus still has the
power within him to help others to the best of his ability, and it is in the
context of this fatherly fortitude that we may grant him some leeway with
regards to his lunatic methods.
The screenplay
is very well written. The story is portrayed rather than given. Most importantly, we enter the scenes late
and leave early. This roller-coaster
persists from one scene to the other, save for a few scenes where the stillness
before the action is filmed in order to set the audience up for the great
surprise, or to fulfil their now-informed expectations. Under the hood, the movie is all about
conflict. Early on, it becomes obvious
that nobody is going to back down on pretty much anything, and even Reverend
R.L. is guilty of this. The banter is
very entertaining. The camera follows
the characters all over the place as they growl louder, which is everyone's
chosen method for proving themselves right.
A cut is introduced every now and then to signify a new escalation in
the argument, and it all is very stimulating for the audience. Frankly, it is enjoyable to the point where
any agreement between the characters makes for a little bit of a disappointment. There is almost no exposition in Black Snake Moan, no flashbacks in terms
of screenplay. In a very special scene,
however, and when the singing begins, we finally find our exposition as a
review of what we have already learned.
As such, the screenplay in that rare exposition scene unfolds almost
like an elementary school lesson, where the song is what we use to memorize the
barely comprehensible tidbits of information that we have learned about Lazarus.
Additionally, the length of the movie is very adequate. With the exception of the bizarre
black-and-white footage, it is a very difficult task to try and remove a scene
without distorting the logic of the screenplay.
All in all, Black Snake Moan earns itself a solid
four out of five stars. In general,
while the movie does everything right, it is not mind blowing in any sense of
the word. It earns its points for
uniqueness, unpredictability, and technical prowess. It would be a point of profound interest to
compare the movie to Memoirs of a Geisha,
which was released in December 2005. Black
Snake Moan saw its first release in 2006.
In contrast to the hypersexual white southerner, Rae, Memoirs of a Geisha deals with the life
of an Asian girl whose job is to always seduce but never to partake. It occurs in an extremely strict and historic
environment. The intolerable rituals
that the geisha must endure prior to performing are a staple of the movie. The geisha is quite different from Rae, who
is habitually covered in mud, blood, sweat, and cocaine, and who gleefully
jumps from Guy A to Guy B. We find that,
despite all the intense psychological repercussion on Rae's mind, her careless
sexual freedom and frankness remain preferable to the strict discipline
enforced on the geishas of the outdated world.
This lowbrow story, in the historic sense, establishes itself as a
consequence of a free society. If you
enjoyed Nymphomaniac from 2013, then
you might want to see Black Snake Moan's
completely different take on the subject.
However, Black Snake Moan
deserves a screening inside your home.
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