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Last Updated: Oct 24th, 2008 - 13:27:48 |
Somebody has to tell the story.
There is a moment early in Spike Lee’s latest joint, “Miracle at St. Anna,” when an elderly Black man, Hector Negron, peers at an old World War II flick starring John Wayne on TV. Then, almost inaudibly, Negron mumbles to himself about how Black soldiers were over there too and how “we fought too.”
The scene, quiet and fleeting compared to visceral scenes of war, is a reminder that “Miracle at St. Anna” is, first and foremost, a longed-for big screen production about African American men who fought during World War II. How Black soldiers have been missing in action, particularly in flicks about the “good war,” has not gone unnoticed by scores of Black veterans who find themselves absent from most accounts of the so-called “greatest generation.”
And this absence has not gone unnoticed by Lee, who uses a novel and screenplay by James McBride to tell the story of the All-black 92nd Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during 1944. The story is told as a murder mystery, with Negron at its center and the long-ago war as a vivid flashback.
The introduction of Black soldiers onto the battlefield changes the film conversation and narrative about war. In “Miracle at St. Anna,” there are scenarios when Black soldiers are betrayed and fired upon by their own White captain. The portrayal of overt racism faced abroad and at home by Black U.S. soldiers depicts a complex and painful history that these veterans do not forget.
Lee obviously has a lot to say and he packs a lot into two and a half complex and poignant hours. Death and destruction live side-by-side with the gentleness required to care for a child. Conspiracy, spirituality and a belief in the supernatural exists with lust and moments of comedy.
While this complex mix of emotions does not seem out of place, sometimes the overload of story lines makes the film feel choppy. It is possible to lose track of what is the miracle amid such tragedy. And some of Negron’s mumblings and circumstances, on which we must build to solve the mystery, are not easily understood.
On the other hand, one seamless thread throughout is Terence Blanchard’s signature jazz soundtrack, which offers, literally, a whole different rhythm and atmosphere to scenes of war. Similarly, the ensemble cast, including Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Omar Benson Miller and Laz Alonzo, works like a well-oiled machine and transports us to another time when young men—teenagers and those in their early twenties—gave their lives in battle.
Though Ealy plays the part of the pretty boy womanizer and Miller plays the big and slow country boy—(“the biggest Negro you have ever seen in your life”)—Lee has matured as a filmmaker and characters in “Miracle at St. Anna” are not the stark archetypes in films such as “Do the Right Thing,” “Jungle Fever,” or his other male ensemble cast film, “Get on the Bus.” In “Miracle at St. Anna,” Negron functions almost as the Unknown Soldier or, more exactly, the Unknown Black Soldier.
And someone must tell his story.
Esther Iverem will be discussing black culture and criticism Sunday, September 28 at 1:30 p.m. at the Baltimore Book Festival in Baltimore, Md.
www.baltimorebookfestival.com
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
You can order Esther Iverem's critically praised We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or purchase at your favorite bookstore. It makes a wonderful gift! Thanks!
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