Wednesday,
September 10, 2008
Spike Lee's
"Miracle at St. Anna" One Man's
Massacre is another’s Miracle
Spike
Lee who has a history of Anti Italian American Portrayals, (like "Do
the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever") is rather sadistic, morbid,
and crass in his selection of the city of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, site
of a German massacre of 560 Italian Civilians during WWII, in Lee's attempt to glorify the military combat
contributions of blacks during WWII. Lee also takes great license, and
engages in great distortion
Unfortunately,
at the time of WWII, racism was still alive, and the Buffalo
Soldiers (92nd Division) in Europe, (and not
until July 1944) the 93rd Division in the Pacific, and the Tuskegee Airmen were
the only significant examples of Black soldiers being permitted to be in COMBAT
roles. All other service was limited to support services, as cooks,
clerks, warehouseman, drivers, graves registration etc. SO Lee's attempt seems ridiculous. Additionally the 92nd had
fallen under criticism, deservedly or not. Of the 405399 US Military killed
in WWII, 773 Blacks were killed in action (1.4% of U.S. total, while 10% were in
service)
Spike,
you need an attitude adjustment !!!!
Film Review:
Miracle at St. Anna
Bottom Line:
Spike Lee ventures outside his comfort zone to diminishing returns.
Toronto International Film
Festival (Disney)
TORONTO -- Spike Lee has so much
on his plate in "Miracle at St. Anna" that it's
little wonder everything goes flying. He wants to throw a spotlight in the
highly underreported exploits of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division, known as
the Buffalo Soldiers, in the Italian campaign in World War II. He wants to show
the prejudices they suffered at home and on the frontline, the disputes among
themselves, their uneasy but ultimately warm reception by the Italians
contrasted with the hostilities with the Nazis. There's
a romantic triangle with a local woman, a shell-shocked Italian boy, betrayals within
the Partisans, a German army massacre and some heavy-handed magic realism. You
can just feel audience involvement ebb slowly away with each passing scene of
this overlong movie.
Disney won't find
"Miracle" an easy film to market. Spike Lee's
own name may be the best marketing tool, but the film lacks the discipline the
director has shown in his recent efforts. It hits every thematic point too
heavily and doesn't know when to
move on. Boxoffice prospects are not promising.
An unconvincing episode in 1980s New
York bookends the film in which an aging
African-American postal clerk kills an aging Italian immigrant whom he
obviously recognizes from the war. The first sequences in Italy portray
the Buffalo Soldiers as poorly trained and vague about their mission, a bit
surprising given their historic reputation for skill and bravery. The
incompetence of their white commanders is ultimately blamed for a botched
operation that lands four soldiers behind enemy lines, surrounded by the enemy
in a picturesque village.
Private Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), a large man with limited intellect but
a strong faith in God, befriends a traumatized 9-year-old boy (Matteo Sciabordi), the first white person he has ever actually
touched. The idealistic Sgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) and the cynical Sgt.
Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) develop a rivalry over
the town's beauty (Valentina Cervi), conveniently
the only person who speaks English. Corporal Victor Negron (Laz
Alonso) struggles along with Stamps to contact headquarters and then to follow
orders to kidnap a German soldier. In adapting his own novel, James McBride
lets confusion seep into his story as the rifts among the Partisans and
villagers are never entirely clear and even the orders from American and German
headquarters seem capricious. That we're
even privy to what the German commanders are up to, given that this is a
flashback of an American soldier's
memory, is odd.
Odd too, for a film that wants to correct impression anyone had as to the
abilities of black U.S.
soldier in combat, are the ethnic cliches about
Italians and Germans, to say nothing of rednecks. Portraying "Hun"
soldiers as those who would bayonet babies was old in World War I.
Ultimately, the film is an unsavory blend of the sentimental and melodramatic.
The subplot of the psychologically injured Italian boy and his "chocolate
giant" is never persuasive. In fact, the whole episode is downright
embarrassing. The Italian woman, her Fascist dad and indeed all the villagers
are like bad memories summoned from vintage World War II movies. And having the
woman parade topless before an American soldier is pure male fantasy.
None of the characters comes to any kind of life in the writing. Each has but a
single dimension with little else to distinguish one from another. The story
meanders, almost absurdly so, once the quartet get stranded in the medieval
village. Certainly if Lee wanted to cut the film a bit before its release, he
has ample places to begin.
Perhaps feeling insecure in all this melodrama, Lee lets
composer Terence Blanchard blanket the film with a wall of sound, telling you
how to feel and react at any given moment.
Production companies: Touchstone
Pictures presents in association with On My Own Produzione
Cinematografiche/Rai Cinema presents a 40 Acres and a
Mule production.
Cast: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson
Miller, Pierfrancesco Favino,
Valentina Cervi, Matteo Sciabordi, John Turturro, Joseph
Gordon-Levitt.
Director: Spike Lee.
Based on a novel by: James
McBride
Producers: Roberto Cicutto, Luigi Musini, Spike Lee.
Rated R, 160
minutes.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/awards_festivals/fest_reviews/article_display.jsp?JSESSIONID=TLpqLF9GSKD2MBhJ1BsPsjYWHj1QB0V6TV5cGhCNhMGgh2MWL1gF!-423611787&&rid=11633
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