Review of Baadasssss! (2004) by Bryan G — 22 Sep 2004

[SIZE=3]In the early 1970s, a talented African-American filmmaker named Melvin van Peebles set out to do the unthinkable: he wanted to make a serious movie by black people and for black people, one that expressed the pent-up anger so many African-Americans felt after years of being oppressed by society.

At the time, van Peebles was a relatively successful director...his last film, a silly comedy, had done surprisingly well at the box-office, and the Hollywood powers-that-be anointed van Peebles as their resident black filmmaker.

The caveat was that van Peebles had to continue to direct dumb, formulaic movies...when what he really wanted to do was make a film that reflected the experience of being a black person in America. The film van Peebles eventually made was [I]Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song[/I], a movie in which a black hero is persecuted by racist white police, but eventually gets revenge and fights back against a corrupt system.

To everyone's surprise, [I]Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song[/I] was an enormous success, and it ushered in an era of black cinema in the 1970s. [I]Baadasssss![/I] is a film about the entire history of how van Peebles' film got produced: how it was conceived, how it was made on a shoestring budget, how the crew had many internal squabbles, and finally, how van Peebles managed to successfully distribute the movie.

Although [I]Baadasssss![/I] is not always dramatically engaging, it does gain a certain resonance because it was directed by Mario van Peebles, the son of Melvin. Mario also plays his own father in the movie, and we can sense that he must be channeling his memories of the production of [I]Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song[/I].

What [I]Baadasssss![/I] is quite successful at is showing how difficult low-budget filmmaking truly is, and how it requires both the cast and the crew to make tremendous sacrifices. Melvin van Peebles may have been a risk-taker, but he was no fool: we can see that he understands exactly what he has to do to ensure financing for his film.

The financiers that van Peebles eventually settles on aren't particularly interested in any artistic endeavors...in fact, they think that van Peebles is making a porn film, and so van Peebles is required to shoot several sexually explicit scenes just to make it appear as if the movie is pornography.

One trap the film avoids is that it doesn't glorify Melvin van Peebles...it is clear that he is an ambitious man (and in a way, a visionary), but he can also be extremely stubborn and short-sighted.

There is an unsettling sequence in which Melvin uses his son Mario (who was only about twelve at the time) as an actor in a sex scene...it is unsettling because we sense that the incident still bothers Mario to this day.

Unfortunately, [I]Baadasssss![/I] never succeeds in being anything more than a competent and occasionally compelling re-enactment of the making of [I]Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song[/I]. (Mario) van Peebles' directorial choices are often somewhat incoherent, and so [I]Baadasssss![/I] doesn't really hum along as smoothly as it should.

The ending of the film shows how [I]Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song[/I] slowly took the nation by storm, but it doesn't really bother to look closely at the film's content or to question whether the film was a work of populist art or simply benefited from good timing and a cultural need among African-Americans.

Most of [I]Baadasssss![/I] is enjoyable and interesting, but it is difficult to shake the feeling that the film could have gone deeper and not been so conventional. Mario van Peebles clearly made the film as a tribute to his father's willingness to take risks by making a controversial movie.

It is ironic that Mario forgot to take some risks with his own film.[/SIZE].