Chi-Raq
Even when you consider the diverse twists and turns Spike Lee has made in his 29-year career, the recent Honorary Oscar recipient has never made a film quite like “Chi-Raq.” It’s at times like this when it absolutely kills me that I still haven’t watched Lee’s 2000 powder keg, “Bamboozled,” because in tone, from what I know of that film, it’s probably the closest to “Chi-Raq” Lee has made, although it certainly feels like a second cousin to his masterpiece, “Do the Right Thing,” as well. This is the second film Lee has delivered to theaters this year, following his Kickstarter-funded February film, “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” and it also comes with ‘Net funding, with Amazon helping fund and distribute it. How did it come to the point where one of the most important filmmakers of a generation had to look to the internet to fund his projects? So long as the films continue to turn out like these do, does it really matter?
“Chi-Raq” starts out with a black screen. Lyrics are popping up on the screen. A rapper is singing about Chi-Raq, which has become a slang term for Chicago, Illinois, which has seen more people killed by gun violence than American casualties in the Iraq War. That rapper’s stage name is also Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon, terrific), and the pain and fury he raps about in “Pray 4 My City” sets the tone of the film to come. After that cold opening and those hard statistics, we have the wickedly inspired Samuel L. Jackson coming on screen as Dolmedes, who is our storyteller, and one-man Greek chorus, for this story of the streets. Things start violent when, while on-stage, Chi-Raq gets shot at by members of a rival gang headed by Cyclops (Wesley Snipes, thriving under the direction of his “Jungle Fever” director). You see, there’s a bloody war going on between Chi-Raq’s Spartans and Cyclops’s Trojans, and it’s starting to take a toll, especially when Chi-Raq and his girl, Lysistrata (the exceptional Teyonah Parris, in a truly standout performance), are getting busy, and her apartment building is set on fire. That’s the last straw for Lysistrata, who turns to a neighbor (Angela Bassett, soulful and angry) for a place to stay, and maybe an idea on how to stop the violence. What Miss Helen (Bassett’s character) suggests is a revolutionary idea- until their men put down their guns, they won’t be getting any ass. Next thing we see, Lysistrata’s movement has taken Chicago, and the world, by storm, and the women have taken a National Guard facility hostage until the violence stops.
If the premise sounds absurd, well, you haven’t been paying attention to the well-documented epidemic of gun violence not only in Chicago, but the country in general, where we currently have one mass shooting a day happening in 2015. Of course, you’re not thinking about that part being absurd, you’re thinking about the “no sex until peace” movement that drives the film, to which I say, no kidding it’s absurd. That idea comes not from real life but from the Greek satirical play, Lysistrata, by Aristophanes. Yes, Lee (working with co-writer Kevin Willmott) is poking a satirical stick at a politically tricky subject, hoping that something in the message gets through to his audience. Unfortunately, if the 10 or so other patrons I saw the film with are any indication, that audience is going to be small indeed. That’s a shame, because Lee isn’t interested in simply being a mouthpiece for liberal arguments for gun control, although we certainly hear a lot of left-wing fire-and-brimstone on the issue of guns from not just Miss Helen but also Father Mike Corridan (John Cusack), a white priest who grew up in South Chicago, and was led to come here by Jesus’s example of helping the poor and downtrodden. Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll hear any of Lee’s characters bringing up the old go-to canard about “mental illness” being the real issue, nor will you hear people advocating for guns everywhere, but you do hear, again from Father Corridan, a discussion about how the key to breaking the cycle of violence is to turn hearts from hate to love, as he consoles Irene (the devastating Jennifer Hudson), a grieving mother whose 11-year-old daughter was just gunned down in a drive-by shooting, and other mothers who have lost children. They prefer the movement for peace and change preached by Martin Luther King, and you can see echoes not just of Dr. King’s example, but the pain of a group like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (which was formed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary) in Mothers of the Hood, the group that springs up from Irene’s loss is a productive gain for the community, and the craziness of Lysistrata’s form of non-violent protest. One of the best things about Lee’s finest films has always been his ability to see his subject clearly, regardless of how personal it may be, and present it in a way that may not appeal to the masses, but will certainly speak to everyone watching, in one way or another. Clarity in terms of subject matter does not always equate itself to cinematic focus, however, and there are times that Lee’s focus drifts in individual scenes, as they are let to go on a little long. As scenes, they are entertaining, but for the purposes of the story being told, they need not go on that long.
Lee is working at the top of his game as a cinematic stylist, with cinematographer Matthew Libatique (“She Hate Me,” “Inside Man,” “Miracle at St. Anna”) doing some of his most creative work to date with Lee, especially when it comes to the crowd scenes that pop up, and especially when the characters begin to dance. (The scene where the Chicago PD and FBI try to get Lysistrata’s army to surrender by getting them hot-and-bothered with slow R&B songs is one of the funniest pieces of lunacy in modern movies, and the army’s choreography as they hear that siren song is perfect.) The costume by Ruth E. Carter would not normally get a mention from me, but since we have a lot of different factions and groups getting together during this film, they definitely deserve a shout-out for their creativity. And editors Ryan Denmark and Hye Mee Na are attuned to Lee’s rhythms as a filmmaker (although they do let him indulge in some scenes a bit too much), as is composer Terrence Blanchard, whose distinctive musical voice (as heard in “Malcolm X,” “Miracle at St. Anna,” “25th Hour” and many other Lee films) is evident from the first notes we hear in “Pray 4 My City,” and it builds and shifts from there. He may lose focus at time, but “Chi-Raq” is Lee’s most assured film since “Inside Man,” and thanks to the cast that puts themselves in the director’s hands for the profound purpose of illuminating the insanity of the gun violence we find ourselves all-too-often held hostage to as a nation, it earns the right to get us to take notice when the words “Wake Up” show up on screen. We need to, and even though there are no easy answers, we have to come together, and at least try some difficult ones if this is truly going to come to an end.
