Film Review: Blackkklansman (2018)
George H. W. Bush did not enter history as a figure capable of stirring strong emotions, so it is somewhat unusual that what essentially marks the beginning of the careers of two of America's most politically "charged" filmmakers coincided precisely with his presidency. It was in 1989 that the film world, through the documentary Roger & Me and the feature film Do the Right Thing, came to know Michael Moore and Spike Lee. Both built their reputations by depicting the dark underbelly of modern capitalism from the perspective of the communities they came from—in Moore's case, impoverished Catholic workers in the post-industrial Rust Belt, and in Lee's case, African Americans who, more than a century and a half after the abolition of slavery and half a century after the formal end of racial segregation, still find themselves in an inferior position relative to the white majority. Both filmmakers also had filmographies of rather varied quality over the next three decades, with it being noticeable that critics and the cultural establishment were generally more favourably disposed towards them during times when a Republican occupied the White House rather than a Democrat. This can partly be explained by the fact that figures like George W. Bush or Donald Trump, and the policies associated with them, served as far more fertile sources of inspiration for Moore and Lee, and also because their angry sermons against the ills of contemporary America were far harder to take seriously when America was a seen as utopian land of milk and honey under the likes of Clinton and Obama.
It is therefore not surprising that BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee's latest and one of his most politically engaged films, was made in 2018, rather than few years earlier, just as it is even less surprising that it has provoked absolute delight among the salon leftists, evident also in the prestigious Palme d'Or it won at the Cannes Film Festival. The film's plot is based on true events, namely the autobiography of former police officer Ron Stallworth, in which he described an investigation he led in Colorado Springs in the 1970s. At the very beginning, Stallworth (John David Washington) becomes the first African American officer in the local police force and, like many of his compatriots, must face the racist prejudices that were widespread among his colleagues at the time. His dark skin, however, becomes an asset when the local police decide to surveil local Black militants, and Stallworth is sent undercover to monitor their activities. The task is successfully completed, and Stallworth not only meets the attractive Black student activist Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), but so impresses his superiors that he is permanently transferred to the intelligence division. There, he gets the idea to similarly infiltrate the extreme white racist organisation, the Ku Klux Klan, by posing as a white man over the phone, calling a number he saw in a newspaper ad. The Klansmen are thrilled at the prospect of a new recruit, but Stallworth, for obvious reasons, cannot meet them in person. As a replacement to "play" him, his white colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) steps in, demonstrating an even greater talent for infiltration and gaining the trust not only of the local Klansmen but also of David Duke (Topher Grace), the Klan's leader who at the time was attempting to transform the organisation and make it relevant again through a new and supposedly more modern image.
The plot of BlacKkKlansman is a fascinating, almost unbelievable Hollywood-like story that was crying out to be turned into a film that could simultaneously be a suspenseful thriller, an extremely entertaining black comedy, and a powerful political commentary. There is no doubt that at least some members of the four-person screenwriting team thought something similar, but in the end, Lee was interested solely in the last part of that formula. His film thus essentially says everything Lee has been saying throughout his entire filmography—that Black Americans were, still are, and will be victims of racist abuse and injustice that will persist as long as there are white people, at least those of the Protestant faith, or at least in numbers sufficient to prevent all the crooked paths of American history from being fully corrected through the political process or some revolutionary means. That message in itself is not a problem, and Lee himself has shown in his career that it does not prevent him from creating some exceptional films. In this film, however, he delivers that message to the audience with the subtlety of a bulldozer, and at the expense of the basic plot, which feels as if it has strayed into someone's political sermon. This will confuse viewers, as in the prologue where an anonymous Klan propagandist (played by Alec Baldwin) rants against segregation, which ended in the 1960s, and similarly in segments where Lee attempts to grapple with Hollywood's heritage, primarily films like the notorious The Birth of a Nation—which is explicitly (and unfortunately, historically accurately) cited as one of the catalysts for the Klan's 20th-century renaissance—and Gone with the Wind, which is somewhat more implicitly accused of a paternalistic attitude towards the Black community. On the other hand, the film shows a great effort to portray the KKK of the 1970s as a kind of precursor or catalyst for Trump, so the Klansmen explicitly repeat Trump's slogans, and one of Stallworth's colleagues even expresses the opinion that one day in the future, a racist will reach the White House by "packaging" racist prejudices through somewhat more legitimate slogans about illegal immigration; Stallworth, of course, expresses disbelief that such a thing could ever happen, although the audience—at least the one Lee is addressing—will have no trouble concluding that reality turned out differently.
Lee, who has sometimes managed to break some of Hollywood's unwritten rules with statements like the one about Holocaust films, this time leaves nothing to chance, so it is clearly established that the Ku Klux Klan is not only a racist but also an antisemitic organisation. Because of all this, Stallworth's partner is Jewish, and the film gets a subplot related to his attempt to rediscover, or rather hide from racist scum, his Jewish identity. But this is not enough for Lee, so he must link the past to the dark Trumpian present and end the film with notorious footage of 2017 Charlotteville riots and clashes between racist protesters and anti-fascists in which a young woman was killed. In doing so, Lee showed how much he is capable of underestimating his audience's intelligence. That, of course, does not mean that BlacKkKlansman lacks its own merits. Even with its lack of subtlety, the film contains some humour and even moments when Lee gives the impression that he truly enjoys what he is doing. This can be seen, for example, in scenes reconstructing the speech of the famous Black militant Stokely "Kwame Ture" Carmichael (played by Corey Hawkins) or the charming reconstruction where Stallworth and his partner enjoy dancing to soul music.
The acting, of course, is up to par. This applies to Washington, who until this film was mainly known as the son of the far more famous Denzel, as well as the ever-reliable Driver, who bravely handles a triple role, and Topher Grace is brilliant as Duke. Although it is essentially a good and at times entertaining film, it is hard to avoid the impression that, like Fahrenheit 9/11—another film that won the Palme d'Or thanks to political criteria—it will fall into oblivion the moment the occupant of the White House changes its party affiliation.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version was posted here.)
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