Written by Hunter Daniels

American Violet

I’ve often commented about my distaste for “Oscar-bait” films. I’m bored by their tendency to pander to pseudo-intellectuals the same way that summer films pander to 13-year old boys. Tim Disney’s new film, American Violet is a case study in this theory.

The film is well crafted, well acted and well intentioned, but ultimately hollow. It tells the true story of an ACLU case about racism in Texas drug task forces. It hits all the big buttons, complete with excessive stock footage of the Bush/Gore election debacle and Tyler Perry style sequences of ex-husband abuse. It’s just that none of it is engaging, at all.

You’ve already seen this film. It was called Erin Brockovich once. The Insider another time. Though it claims to be a real life yarn, the narrative structure slavishly follows the underdog repressed hero archetype of the aforementioned Soderbergh film beat for beat. Nicole Behaire plays the endlessly good Dee Roberts who never lets the threat of 20 years in prison get her down. Michael O’Keefe is the nefarious, racist DA who is never given a single moment of real humanity. She’s all Madonna. He’s all whore.  

The film aims to be a treatises on race relations but it comes up very short of this goal. All the black characters are good-natured and innocent of any criminal behavior while all the expected white characters are evil, dastardly racists. This type of either/or dichotomy undercuts the sentiments of the film because it ultimately reduces all of the characters to polemic cardboard cutouts.

And it’s a real shame because the film has a very good and very important message about the massive failures of our legal system, (it would be a farce to call it a “justice system”). But the film is also filled with boring clichés about broken families and how much black people love church. The acting is excellent across the board with excellent turns from Tim Blake Nelson and Behaire leading up a solid ensemble, but too much time I spent discussing on the nose topics. The script has many effective moments and genuine scenes, but it is also very rote and perfunctory.

All in all, it’s a wash.

BARAKA

There are no words for Baraka. It is pure, unadulterated emotion.

Truffaut discussed a concept called “The Holy Moment” in his film writing.  Basically, it’s the idea that our lives don’t make sense because we cannot discern the essential from the extraneous. We can’t cut ahead 15 years to the next important event in the bio-pic. Instead, we are stuck in the banal mud of our day-to-day lives. Film, however, is separated from this. In film we see only the essential. Only that which we must absolutely see. And we see it from the exact angle necessary for understanding. In essence, when we view a film, we are seeing through the eyes of God. We are privy to the Holy Moment where existence makes sense. 

Baraka is 96 minutes of uninterrupted beauty and genius. If you’ve ever wanted 10,000 reasons to live, this is the film for you. 

Hypnotic and deeply felt Baraka flows with a visual poetry the likes of which I have never experienced before. It is a 70mm fever dream of intensely compelling images of nature and indigenous culture. A mix of blood, sweat, tears, semen, ink, and gasoline.  There is no plot. there are no characters. There is just the overpowering beauty of our natural world and the things we have built in it.

I cannot describe this film. It is in fact not a film. It is a religious experience. The 8k HD projection of the 70mm feature stands as perhaps the most singularly stunning thing I have ever seen. The ethereal music only makes the emotion of it all that much more palpable.

This film alone makes me want to buy an HDTV, Blu-Ray and some giant speakers. My skin looked low-res compared to the images on screen. If this ever plays within 100 miles of your home, go.

The digitally remastered Blu-ray comes out in October.