“Better the devil I know.”
Coming from the South, it was revelatory to see Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, paint such a textured, complex, and mystical picture of a place that doesn’t always get such treatment. When people talk about the South, it’s mainly with a mixture of mockery and, more recently, a small measure of nuance. However, sympathy is still not dispensed in large quantities to the people who live in these areas. It’s home to more than half of America’s Black population. It’s also the land of rich culture and perseverance in which Coorgler’s Sinners dwells.
Set in rural Mississippi during the early 1930s, Sinners takes place in the peculiar aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The South is both picturesque with its sprawling open plains, dirt roads, and pointed shots of cotton fields where Black people still work. Sinners becomes Coogler’s sandbox for playing with the contradictions of freedom and racism as decreed by the United States government.
The film is electric. It’s so bold that it’s hard not to feel like the tide may be turning in filmmaking. I prefer someone like Coogler taking creative risks to the timid, safe bet of a reboot (which aren’t faring well at the box office as of late anyway). There’s a harsh edge to Coogler’s critique of the United States’ racial politics; at the same time, the filmmaker also keeps alive the soul of the people who suffered and continue to suffer under those politics. Sinners devotes a significant portion of its running time to exploring the economic and social mobility of the time – to places where White folks could roam and Black folks could not. There are several backshots of a character that place us in these arbitrary constraints. Like, for example, Grace (Li Jun Li), the daughter of a Chinese immigrant, who can cross the segregated spaces between white and Black with ease but is not fully immersed in either. Or Smoke (Michael B. Jordan), one of the film’s leads, who, despite all the wealth his family accumulated up North, can’t cross that unspoken line. Ultimately, money can’t buy you the respect and the humanity that White people don’t see in Black people. However, it seems that money can buy the Moore twins the illusion of power, even if it’s on borrowed time.
As Smoke and Stack Moore, Michael B. Jordan plays the role of a lifetime. The distinct emotional and physical balance that Jordan strikes between the twins is reminiscent of Britt Lower’s work, as seen in both Helly R. and Helena Eagan on Severance. When the line between the two people in one body is as clear and easily malleable as it is here, it’s breathtaking. And despite their connection, they still want different things. The twins’ motivations come to the fore once they open up a juke joint for their community. They represent two sides battling their juxtapositions in ways that still plague our own modern struggles with capitalism and race. Can there ever be absolute freedom in a nation built upon so much death and violence? Coogler leaves the answer to his audience: it’s up to us, as viewers, to question our roles within history.
Smoke seems to think that power is the only way to regain the humanity taken from him by America’s fractured racial politics. At the same time, Stack still hints at preserving community over capital. It’s the kind of paradox that permeates throughout the film. Especially when Jack O’Connell’s Remmick comes knocking. O’Connell’s performance as the jaunty vampire who enters in all his burned-out glory is another of Sinners’ many memorable performances in Sinners. Remmick’s accent and rendition of “Rocky Road to Dublin” imply an Irish heritage and further suggest his own struggles with oppression, first under English rule and then as an American immigrant. His paradox comes from his desire to build community; he’s turning people into vampires to feed the endless pit of loneliness and anger consuming him from the inside out. However, Remmick uses the plague and trauma of Black people to do so. Even as he dances a jig inside the circle of people he’s turned, his remains a community built upon power and control rather than consent, not unlike the history of slavery in American culture.
At the heart of the film is the grounding supporting performances of its female cast.
Wunmi Mosaku’s standout performance as Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner, grounds the roots of Black Americans forced to immolate not just their liberty but also their culture and religion. Annie represents the unsuccessful attempt of White forces to subjugate the human spirit – something that any tangible force can’t touch, and that manifests in the abundance of sensuality that lights the screen on fire.
Sinners’ most significant accomplishment is bringing sex, in all its glory, to the forefront. Coogler’s juke joint is set in a secluded piece of land inside an abandoned old factory. Weathered and made of old wood, the joint transforms into a welcoming oasis by the time the sun goes down, and with it, so do the earthly desires of human beings climb out of the shadows. Christianity in this film signifies not just racial oppression but oppression of the body. Of desire and heat. Of feeling pleasure in moments where outside forces only want you to feel pain.
From cunnilingus in the backroom to the slow, sweaty grinding of bodies set to dripping blues melodies, Sinners is for debauchery. Once we move inside the juke joint after its grand opening, the warm, rich colors of Autumn Durald’s cinematography douse us in sensual tones. The beautiful, dark skin of its occupants shines and glows.
Sinners is Coogler at his best. The film is exhilarating and urgent, like it wants to grab you by the lapels and shake you. To wake you up to a fast-moving world that demands our attention.
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