Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Is More Than a Film — It’s a Cultural Revelation

 

I’ve been heavily touting the film “Sinners” since seeing it twice, and as a former film critic, I feel obligated to offer my own abbreviated review.  Here it is: Ryan Coogler’s auteur breakout is a tour de force.

 

Not only is this film a visual feast, with stunning panoramas and expansive tracking shots; not only is it a period-piece, echoing with poignant historical insights; not only does it use vampirism as a metaphor for the expropriation of Black culture; not only does it accurately entangle the histories of African, Native and Irish Americans, noting the Irish's history of oppression; not only does it reveal the Blues as the aesthetic fount for American music; not only does it note the ethnic rivalries that rocked Chicago during the Capone era; not only does it explore the conflict between music’s sensual and sacred impulses; not only does it hint at the metaphysical powers twin-ness embodies; it does all of this with the confidence and panache of a wizened culture conjurer.  Coogler, the film’s writer and director, is not yet 40.

 

The chore of great art is to keep observers interested while they’re being shot full of insight. That’s a difficult chore because insight is inherently uninteresting to most folks. “Outsight” (titillation of the senses) is what usually gets our attention; thus, much of our entertainment fare is way too outsighful. “Sinners” manages to jam significant insight into some very outsightful scenarios.

 

Am I being too arch here? Perhaps.  I really don’t want to give too much away from a film best seen without preconceived notions. There is, however, one particular scene I don't mind revealing.  It’s a short scene, but it’s one of the most moving film passages I’ve ever seen. It’s a phantasmagorical, time-spanning montage of African-born musical genres conjured by a powerful Blues prodigy, played by Miles Caton. This young brother is a newcomer to the acting craft, but his voice is vintage, and the scene is magical. 

 

Caton may be a newbie, but the film is filled with vets, including Coogler’s “DeNiro” Michael B. Jordan (who plays twins), Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Omar Miller, Wunmi Mosaku, and Jack O’Connell. Jordan effectively plays two roles as twin characters, Smoke and Stack.  Coogler’s inclusion of twins (and the need for Jordan to portray nuanced distinctions)  as dual protagonists presents complications that are unnecessary unless there is a greater point to their presence. That point, like much in this layered production, is an allegorical one.    

 

The entire film moves at that poetic pace. When Lindo, as the character Delta Slim, tells a horrific tale of a racist lynching as the quartet (Lindo, Caton, and “the twins”) motors through vast cotton fields, Caton’s musical response perfectly illustrates Blues’ therapeutic function.  Even when Smoke gives a negotiating lesson to a young girl he asked to watch his car, it has the gravity of significance. Coogler seems too young to summon such significance from just a vampire movie set in the segregated South. But his prior movies -- Fruitville Station, Creed, The Black Panther, Wakanda Forever -- have all been well-reviewed and financially successful, so his youth obviously belies his directing chops. 

 

What’s more, every one of his films featured Jordan in leading roles. Jordan is to Coogler what Robert DeNiro is to Martin Scorsese, (or, what Denzel Washington is to Spike Lee) thus the above reference, and thus the two’s extraordinary connection. The Smoke/Stack twin conceit is inconceivable without the simpatico sensibilities of Jordan and Coogler, and perhaps the director wanted to exploit the uniqueness of that bond. Still, adding the complication of twin protagonists, with the same actor playing both parts, seemed to be biting off much more than necessary. But Coogler chewed (and digested) what he bit off.

 

While initially presented as a vampire movie, in the tradition of Robert Rodriguez’s stylish “From Dusk till Dawn”, Coogler’s epic has much more on its mind. As I noted earlier, it juggles weighty issues with such casual aplomb that they fade into the scenery.  There is one tracking shot, for example, that follows the daughter of a Chinese store owner (another historical nugget: there was a significant Chinese population in post-Bellum Mississippi) from one side of the street to the other, and we see the strict racial segregation that characterized the era. No need for exposition, the cinéphotography says it all. Also, close observers may notice the distant but menacing presence of huge buzzards descending on locations targeted by the vampires. This pathbreaking production is replete with such layered meanings; it’s almost a miracle that it’s also so entertaining.   But it is.  And being that it manages to be both entertaining and enlightening, “Sinners” is one of those rare aesthetic milestones that chart our future by illuminating our past.