BLACK SNAKE MOAN (2006) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Craig Brewer
Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Timberlake,
S. Epatha Merkerson, Michael Raymond-James
John Cothran, David Banner, Kim Richards
A dramatized blues riff shot in and around Memphis, about an old black farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) and a troubled nymphomaniac (Christina Ricci) who turns up beaten and half-naked on the road that goes by his house. Thinking she won't be around long, he takes her in, cleans up her bruises and gets some medicine for her cough. When he finds out the true nature of her affliction, he chains her to the radiator, still in her underwear, and that's where she spends a good part of the picture. On the surface, this is pure, over-the-top exploitation, and if that's all you're looking for, you'll probably get your money's worth. When producer John Singleton remarks on the DVD that if they'd made the same movie in the South 15 years earlier, they all would've gotten lynched, he's not entirely kidding. But it works as blues, too, the sexually charged story providing a metaphor for a deeper, painful truth about human relationships. Ricci attacks her role with such ferocity, you wonder whether any other name actress would even attempt such a thing, much less pull it off. Another thing you wonder about is how she keeps her panties so clean, with all the time she spends being dragged, both literally and figuratively, through the dirt. Maybe she did her laundry late at night, when nobody else was looking.
