"A Baad Asssss Nigger is Coming Back to Collect Some Dues..."

SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG

Year: 1971
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 538
Director: Melvin Van Peebles
Starring: Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales, John Dullaghan
IMDb: 5.6
RT score: 79%

Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was the movie that actually started a whole sub-genre called blaxploitation, a genre by black people, about black people and for black people. It's show us the poor treatment that they where exposed to, and whom finally get to see one of their own get out his rage towards the whites.

This is the story about the african-american street hustler Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) who is blessed with a large equipment who every women have adores since he was a little kid. But one night two white policemen need a suspect for a criminal act, so it's natural that they can always find a black man. But on his way to the station followed by the cops, the cops beats up another black man, and Sweetback smashes both of the cops in the head with his handcuffs and beat them to death. Sweetback is now a wanted criminal, and he has no other choice than to make it to the Mexican border. And sadly enough many of his brothers is going to pay for his freedom.




Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is not a great film, it's pretty much kind of dragging, and the production qualities are poor, and also much of the acting, but then again it's a low budget film, which makes it kind of cool. It's jazz soundtrack is good, but it might be to much of the same tune, and it feel exhausted after a while, plus all the color filter effect which makes me dizzy. But what really makes this movie works is the use of realism in forms of sexual intercourse and shocking violence, which really brings out the message. 


Grade: C+

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"Witch Craft? or just a High Fever"

HÄXAN

Year: 1922
Country: Sweden/Denmark
Language: Silent
Number: 16
Director: Benjamin Christensen
Starring: Benhamin Christensen, Elisabeth Christensen, Maren Pedersen, Clara Pontoppidan
IMDb: 7.7
RT score: 88%

Benjamin Christensen's Hãxan is actually a documentary, or rather a bunch of dramatized scenarios about the theme witchcraft in the middle ages and in modern times. It shows us the medieval superstition dramatized with real demons and all, with explanations of why the people who was seduced by demons acted the way they did, not because they where cursed but because of diseases, which is perfectly demonstrated in the part of the film where we follow a lady in the present who suffers from the same distress and human weakness, but only this time instead of being crucified she's getting medical help.

Häxan is a pretty scary, macabre and mystical film, specially when it comes to the demon themselves, and the fact that this is a silent film only makes it more scary. It was actually banned in the United States and heavily censored in multiple countries because of the nudity, violence and torture, which is the element that makes it a great horror film, almost realistic in an honest way, more scary than any of the German expressionistic films, and the fact that this is actually how the medieval people thought how it actually was. A really scary film.


Grade: A-


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"James Dean with a Machine Gun"

ASHES AND DIAMONDS



Original title: Popiól i diament
Year: 1958
Country: Poland
Language: Polish
Number: 335
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski, Adam Pawlikowski
Venice: FIPRESCI Prize
IMDb: 7.9
RT score: 88%

Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds is the last film in the highly acclaimed war trilogy that have put Poland on the map of greatest film nations. This series has been a great success in Poland because it follows the second world war through the eyes of the rebellious youth. We have follow them through the greatest event during the war, like the Warsaw up-spring. But in this last chapter set during one single day, May 8, 1945, the liberation day when the Germans finally surrendered, but the future is still uncertain, because of the strong communist influence that is certainly going to grip the power.

But there's a nationalist group that will prevent the communist of taking control, and one of these nationalists are the young Maciek who is ordered to kill one of the communist leaders. So we follow him in the last hours before he's about to conduct his assignments. The war has given him many mental scars through the years. From fighting the nazis to now fighting the communists. He wear sunglasses all the time, not because it makes him cool, like James Dean, but because all the time in the sewer during the up spring. "I wear these for my father land" as he puts it.




My opinion about this film is that it is kind of a slow film. I am a little afraid for saying what I'm about to say, but I actually hoped it would been much better, and with more action, and it isn't as great as the two previous films. I hoped that this last chapter would lead to something big. The one of the few things that was thrilling was the opening scene, but while watching the rest of the movie, I wasn't that impressed. But it's an alright story, though nothing more. But the main character is just as cool as James Dean, he has the same view towards authorities.


Grade: C+


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