With the Oscars airing tomorrow night at 7 PM EST, I won’t pretend to “call” the winner for ‘Best Picture’ as media is now abuzz with. I don’t know which film that will be. But I do know the reason why I want it to be “Sinners”—Ryan Coogler’s vampire/horror picture that is also a treatise on race, belonging, and true freedom. That Coogler mixes crime (the “Smokestack Twins” are ex-Chicago bootleggers), music (the film introduces Miles Canton as a soulful, blues player), and period (1930s Mississippi) make the film all that more appealing.
As both “Smoke” and “Stack,” Michael B. Jordan excels here. He’s been nominated for “Best Actor in a Lead Role” and deserves it for his bi-fold personality. He plays each pair of the brothers, and Coogler and B. Jordan’s greatest accomplishment is that you feel Smoke and Stack are actually brothers—especially towards the film’s horror-explosion finale. He also carries the weight of two distinct personalities with no note that he’s ever aware of the other one when he’s the playing the opposite.
The Mississippi Delta and the 1930s
Stack is the crafty, business-oriented one while Smoke’s often the violent one. Well… they’re both violent when the situation calls for it. In the film’s near opening, Smoke shoots a guy trying to steal his car while he’s in the store. But he’s not heartless—he gives his friends money to go patch him up. Meanwhile, Stack and Sammie Moore (Canton) are taking care of necessary details in picking up alcohol, gathering a piano player, Delta Slim (the esteemed Delroy Lindo, great here), and opening up the juke. Along the way, Stack will meet up with his wife, Ruthie (Andrene Ward-Hammond) and share some tender moments while reliving the death of their child some time back. Smoke’s not immune from heartbreak either; he’ll brush up with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who’ll remind him what he could have had. 1930s Mississippi is not an easy time, even less so for Black folks.
Yet what Coogler has done here is amazing. His recreation of ‘30s Mississippi is shown in muted colors, much like the hopes of its denizens often suffocating under its haze. Director of Photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw focuses his lens on town squares and cotton fields in equal measure. The settings always appear beautiful, sweeping, and, under Coogler’s direction, unchaperoned. Glean the lighthearted bliss and camaraderie when Stack and Sammie pick up ‘Cornbread’ (Omar Benson Miller) to help them bounce that night at the juke. There’s a sense of family and instant love between any and all of the folks Smoke and Stack meet. I hadn’t felt that kind of cultural bonding shown so excellently on-screen since Alejandro Monteverde’s moving “Bella” in 2006. We feel instantly drawn in and accepted by these people though we’ve never met them.
Of course, not all is fun and games in the Mississippi Delta. An earlier scene shows the Twins buying the barn that will become the juke form a man with KKK ties. They appear to put him in his place. Only later will Smoke do that, in one of the best revenge scenes I’ve seen on film to date.
A Musical Salvation
But “Sinners” has much more in store. It’s a musical haven—Sammie is the best blues guitar player anyone has ever seen, and his guitar—covered with metal and looking as majestic as the sounds that come out of it—feels like a magic talisman rather than musical instrument. We’re told earlier there’s some lore behind Sammie’s ability—his father, a preacher, thinks he has the devil in him—and Coogler draws on the legend of Robert Johnson to explain why he might be so good at it. Coogler also explores a lore where playing of that magnitude can tear rifts in time, bringing together folks from all walks and times, along with bad elements that serve as a warning. In “Sinners,” we see the former in a majestic, sweeping scene that bends space, music, and emotion, and should wishfully nab Durald Arkapaw an Oscar for ‘Best Cinematography’ alone.
The bad elements also show up, here taking the shape of a vampire named Remmick. He’s played charmingly by Jack O’Connell, an Irish vampire who quickly ‘turns’ two KKK apologists to his vampire cause. Remmick will soon visit the juke—as it’s in full swing—in an attempt to turn the revelrous Black folk into vampires as well. We infer it’s been centuries since Remmick’s been a mortal. He badly wants company. He promises Smoke, Stack, and the party eternal happiness and belonging.
It’s not hard to note the commentary on American racism here: since the country’s formation, minorities have been forcefully “asked” to assimilate into White culture. To keep one’s own identity—pluralism—is shunned as refusing to become part of American society. Of course, the patrons of the juke were never meant to make it through the night. Had not the vampires shown up, the KKK—so fully put down by Smoke like the cancer they are at the film’s end—were to come in the morning to kill every last one of them.
A Look at Pure Freedom
Yet somehow, during “Sinners’” 2 hours and 17 minutes—full of horror, racism, gore, and oppression—they film becomes the opposite. Coogler shows us—as Stack states at the film’s must-see post credit scene—“for just a few hours, we was free.” And it’s impossible not to feel that freedom. No, it’s not a freedom of civil rights, politics, and equal opportunity. It’s a freedom of living, of existing without the specter of explaining yourself and just being.
Here, the juke explodes into life: Durald Arkapaw and Coogler paint the night in majestic beauty, silhouetted by the murky dark of night and the warming cognac wood of the barn in which it takes place. Delta Slim and Sammie will play the blues, folks will dance and drink, and it’s a clever middle finger to the law and oppressive White culture that the Twins—who once worked for Capone—stole the liquor and Irish beer they now drink as Whites have stolen from them since time immemorial.
It takes movies like this—another one was Regina King’s excellent “One Night in Miami”—to allow Americans not part of the minority culture to understand and feel lockstep with the participants. I felt that watching King’s picture. I understood the discussions, empathized with their decisions, and wished none of it had to be so hard. “Sinners” does that too, yet underlines it with music, dancing, and a love that is so big there’s almost no room for sadness.
‘Best Picture’ Worthy?
Of course, sadness is there. But Coogler, B. Jordan, and company push it away as long as it will allow. But “Sinners” moved me. I felt, watching it, a feeling of utter bliss and levity. It made me wish for a world where these folks didn’t have to work so hard for this, nor for the achievement to feel so ephemeral. But that sadness is erased with what Coogler has accomplished here, washed away like a communion. There’s a deeply-spiritual picture within “Sinners” that has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with the human spirt.
Tomorrow at the 98th Academy Awards, I truly hope that “Sinners” takes home ‘Best Picture.’ Even to have it nominated is an achievement, but a win would be as revelrous as the film itself. I know I’m neglecting to comment on the film’s action and horror (the scenes are plentiful and an experience of their own), but that’s not what moved me about Coogler’s picture. For that and more, you can click this link to read critic Paul Emmanuel Enicola’s excellent review. Yet I hope that in my words I’ve shown how and why this film touched me so, is such a deserving experience, and earns all the accolades that fall its way. In a climate of culture wars and divisiveness, “Sinners” reminds you of what it’s like to belong. It’s hard to find a better thesis—or takeaway message—than that.
