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| USA 1983/2007 |
One of the most heartening recent developments in the world of American film has been the revival of interest in the work of Charles Burnett. At a moment when the term independent film is taken to refer either to midbudget studio projects anchored by Oscar-soliciting performances or to the aimless navel-gazing of under-stimulated hipsters (Speak up! Stop mumbling!), Mr. Burnett’s work is an indelible reminder of what real independence looks like. His early films in particular also testify to the vitality of a neorealist impulse that has never quite taken root in American cinema. Killer of Sheep and My Brother’s Wedding have a sense of place and personality that is marvelous and rare. Shot in South Central Los Angeles, they are full of the rough poetry of everyday experience, and their depictions of African-American working-class life are humorous, loving and honest, devoid of either condescension or political posturing. A longer, unfinished version of My Brother’s Wedding was shown at the New Directors/New Films festival in 1983, after which the film faded into obscurity. Mr. Burnett has re-edited it in the meantime and has produced an 81-minute feature of astonishing richness and density. The central character is Pierce Mundy (Everette Silas), a not-quite-young man who works in his parents’ dry-cleaning business. Pierce seems stuck on the way to full-fledged adulthood and also caught between his duties to his brother, who is about to marry a doctor’s snooty daughter, and his loyalty to his best friend, Soldier, who can’t stay out of trouble or jail. Somehow, Mr. Burnett, using nonprofessional actors, tells Pierce’s story in a way that balances melodrama with calm observation. Quite a lot happens in My Brother’s Wedding, but the story may be less important than the faces and voices of the actors and the subtlety of their interactions. They are involved, with Mr. Burnett and his crew, in a project of making art out of materials and inspirations that lie close to hand. And the result is a film that is so firmly and organically rooted in a specific time and place that it seems to contain worlds. — A.O. Scott, New York Times |
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