Baadasssss! Review

"BAADASSSSS!" reviews

Movie

BAADASSSSS!

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-25 21:09:37

Provider

MRIB

Review

Mario Van Peebles may feel his whole life has been leading up to this moment. In 1971 his father Melvin wrote, produced, directed and starred in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, widely credited with being the first film of the post-war era to be made by and for black people. Baadasssss is the story of the film and his struggles to get it made, with Mario himself playing his father.

In lesser hands it could've been mawkish, sycophantic drivel, but Mario is extraordinarily honest about his dad's personal shortcomings even while saluting his achievements, effectively accusing him of being an unloosing and authoritarian father. But these criticisms are tempered by his undying admiration for his father's achievements.

Only a few years after the end of legal southern segregation and the murder of Martin Luther King Hollywood execs weren't exactly queueing up to make black movies, and Van Peebles' vision was extraordinarily uncommercial and decidedly experimental regardless of colour. Baadasssss details his stubborn refusal to lay down when production problems pile up.

Shot in a downbeat, almost jittery style, the lack of professional gloss lends even greater truth to the story, emphasising the odds against which Van Peebles Sr was battling. Though such an oddball film is unlikely to find an audience beyond cineastes and students of black cultural history, it deserves far more.

Copyright © MRIB 2005.