Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Nordling's single review of BLACK SNAKE MOAN, my personal favorite film from BNAT. Nordling seems to love it as much as I do. Sam Jackson will make your toes curl by being so badass and Christina Ricci might make your toes curl for a different reason. Mr. Skin is going to love this one... At least 2 or 3 pages, I'm guessing... Anyway, here's Nord with the good word!

People talk down about the South, all the time. Many claim the South is home to backwater culture, that we are too blinded by faith, too accepting of bigotry, and disdain intelligent discourse. Never mind that many are practicing the very same prejudicial attitudes that they claim to disavow. So, in walks Craig Brewer, and his film BLACK SNAKE MOAN. The title alone will elicit snickers from people, and that's the point. There's a bait and switch going on, you see. Because when you go into a film like this expecting some good-old-boy white-trash exploitation, well, maybe you might have your eyes opened a little bit.

Is BLACK SNAKE MOAN exploitative? Sure it is. For the majority of the film Rae (Christina Ricci) wears panties and a skimpy shirt, and many times, not even that much. This has a ton of nudity, more than I can remember in any recent mainstream film. Yes, at one point, Lazarus (Samuel Jackson) chains her to a radiator, and any thinking person will seriously consider the symbolism of what that means. But Brewer uses the genre to get to a deeper, more resonant truth. Like HUSTLE AND FLOW before it, the genre is only a means to an end. These characters aren't just cyphers - they feel real. They feel like they exist. Craig Brewer may misdirect audiences, but it's for a reason.

The film opens as Rae and her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) have sex. It is passionate and wild. Ronnie, who has an anxiety condition, has enlisted in the army and is about to leave. And Rae can't imagine her life without him. She is a very damaged, very sexual creature, and when she gets deep feelings she tends to express them in the only way she knows how - by fucking anything that isn't nailed down. Ronnie gets Gill (Michael Raymond-James) to watch after her while he's gone.

Meanwhile, Lazarus's marriage is ending. His wife is sleeping around and is sick of Lazarus's poor life, and publicly leaves him in a restaurant. Lazarus, a former blues player, is angry, devastated, and lost, and nothing can give him comfort. His good friend and pastor R.L. (John Cochran Jr.) continuously asks him to return to church, but he will not. And then one day, he comes across Rae in the middle of the road, beaten and bloody. He takes her home, and is soon convinced that she has a sickness in her that he aims to cure. By reading the Bible and chaining her to a radiator, he believes he can cure her of her wild ways. But again, Lazarus is alone and confused, and doesn't think things through. And, unexpectedly, they begin to form a bond, a bond just as strong as the chains that bind her, and as deep and powerful as the blues that Lazarus sings on his old Gibson guitar. And Ronnie, who is rejected by the army, begins his return home, and these three people will have to deal with each other and their feelings, amongst the backdrop of the deep South and the blues music that calls the South home.

Craig Brewer called this film his homage to the blues of his beloved Tennessee, just as HUSTLE AND FLOW was to Southern hip-hop. And the blues scenes are powerful. One scene in particular, played during a thunderstorm as the power fades in and out, as Lazarus plays his blues for Rae to comfort her, sent chills up my spine. This film uses music in a very effective manner, cathartic and illuminating. The characters are charged by passion and the blues may be their only release. This film comes from a long tradition of Southern stories, and Brewer always takes his characters and the subject seriously. Religion is given hefty weight in this film and is never used to portray these people as stupid or superstious.

Christina Ricci's performance is one of the most fearless I've seen in a movie. She doesn't seem to hesitate to take Rae to places that most of us would flinch to see. It's very sexual and adult, and on the surface may seem exploitative, but it's really not. And Samuel Jackson has finally been given a role that explores his real talents. Is he still a bad ass? Very much so. The word "motherfucker" off Samuel Jackson's lips is like poetry. But his Lazarus is also vulnerable and confused, and Rae fills a gap that Lazarus nevr knew he had in his life. I'd be surprised if this performance isn't on someone's short list for the Best Actor Oscar next year.

Craig Brewer has made a deeply Southern drama, full of heat, passion, resonance, and soul. It's also seriously adult, which is a breath of fresh air today. In the end, it's about family, and how some ties that bind are deeper than race or blood. I think this will likely be the first great film of 2007. I can't wait to see it again.

Nordling