By Brandon Nolta
There are movies, and then there are films. Movies get made to make money, pure and simple, and other concerns — acting, writing, the numerous and myriad processes of art — are secondary to that. Films, on the other hand, are primarily intended to express a vision or tell a story of importance to the artist or artists behind the project, although they can and often do get tweaked along the way to improve their chances of making money. BLACK SNAKE MOAN, the most recent effort from writer/director Craig Brewer, is a film, and by Hollywood standards, a damn strange one.
Our story opens with the not-so-subtly-named Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson), a former bluesman who has turned to raising vegetables and stewing over being abandoned by his wife for his brother. This would seem like a perfect time to bust out the guitar and write a couple new blues songs (or murder ballads), but Lazarus doesn’t turn to music, or God, like he once did.
On the white-trash side of town, renowned “loose woman” Rae (Christina Ricci) has drunk and doped herself into a tizzy after her beau, Ronnie (Justin Timberlake), ships off to be in the Guard. In short order, she gets used, abused, beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. Lazarus finds her and takes care of her, providing a safe place and medicine, but he quickly realizes that she needs more help than cough syrup and Band-Aids. Using his awesome blues powers in conjunction with the Bible, Laz decides some tough love, and perhaps (although he never calls it this) an exorcism, are in order. Then, he remembers the 40-pound chain he keeps in the barn…
As Brewer points out in one of the DVD extras, the requisite “making of” featurette, BLACK SNAKE MOAN is in no way intended to be a realistic portrayal of two people helping each other. The tone is closer to a fable than anything else, and if you as a moviegoer are cool with this, then you’ll get your money’s worth. Jackson and Ricci take up 80% of the film with their performances, and they’re pretty damn good; Jackson makes Lazarus a caring, vulnerable soul, wounded by cuckoldry without losing his trademark piss and vinegar. Ricci gives us a sharp-edged portrait of a woman everyone has given up on, slowly learning to redefine herself. Not an easy task, especially when all you’re wearing is bikini briefs, a half-T and 40 pounds of chain.
Everything else is top-notch as you might expect, especially the supporting cast led by S. Epatha Merkerson, but special
mention should be made of the music. Brewer recruited several talented musicians, including two grandsons of the late blues master R.L. Burnside, for acting and scoring purposes, but gets some good music out of Mr. Jackson himself, who studied up on the guitar and handles a purple Gibson quite nicely. Even Ms. Ricci sings a song or two, but thankfully, Timberlake restrains himself and keeps in character.
Unless a film gets the two-disc or higher treatment anymore, the set of DVD features is pretty standard, and Paramount Vintage follows the trend here. The picture and sound mix are sharp (with 2.0 Surround and 5.1 Surround available, so you can really rumble the house when Jackson plays the title song), but nothing beyond the pale. A handful of deleted scenes are shown, along with commentary from the director, a few featurettes on the film and the blues, and there you go. Still, with a film this offbeat, who needs special features? It isn’t for everybody, but for those of you in tune with this kind of joint, BLACK SNAKE MOAN is one entertaining film.