Eve's Bayou

 

Jurnee Smollett

Lynn Whitfield

Debbi Morgan

Debbi Morgan and Samuel L. Jackson

Writer/director Kasi Lemmons

EVE’S BAYOU                     A                                                                                                    USA  (109 mi)  1997  d: Kasi Lemmons

A poignant coming-of-age mood piece, this film has the feel of a literary adaptation, beginning as a series of short stories written by this first-time director, set among well-off black Creole families in Louisiana in 1962, descendants of Jean Baptiste, a free black man from slavery days.  This film is a search for the hidden truths among the Creole folklore, music, French influence, and voodoo spirit, led by Samuel L. Jackson who plays a highly respected country doctor who is also a notorious womanizing father, Louis Batiste, the reserved, long-suffering, “perfect” beautiful mother, Lynn Whitfield as Roz Batiste, and three children, the middle child named Eve Baptiste, played by Jurnee Smollett, an intuitive, not always understanding ten-year old narrator who thinks she may have killed her father because she wished it so, because she hated him after her older sister told her of his incestuous advances.  The best thing in the film, however, is daytime soap opera star Debbi Morgan (the first black actress to win a Daytime Emmy), the wise, straight-talking aunt, Mozelle Batiste Delacroix, in what has to be one of the strongest and uniquely compelling black performances ever, a woman who can see other people’s future by laying her hands on theirs, who has lost three husbands but decides to try for a fourth in an attempt to overcome her belief that she is cursed.  This film takes us into the realm of Tennessee Williams and a family’s deep, hidden secrets, filled with dreams and poetry as seen through the vulnerable eyes of a child, showing us how deceptive memory can be, a visually powerful, hauntingly beautiful film, where the director offers her own comments about the control needed on the set in order to realize the extreme degree of stylization, Kasi Lemmons on EVE'S BAYOU YouTube (1:25).  Speaking a mix of Creole French and English, Eve reveals a startling revelation in the opening narration that immediately sends our collective heads spinning, “Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others imprinted indelibly on the brain.  The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old.  My brother Poe was 9, and my sister Cisely had just turned 14.”  The beauty of this film is in its powerful storytelling, having the childlike feel of a Disney film, with no discussion on matters of race, but with adult subject matter, as it deals openly with incest, adultery, and murder, the kind of murky territory you’d expect in a swamp.  Yet because it’s seen through the eyes of a child, she may not be a trustworthy witness, which is called into question almost immediately when their home opens up into a raucous Cajun dance party, featuring classic 50’s and 60’s R&B songs, Bobby Bland - Turn On Your Love Light (2:37), Geno Delafose’s C'est Pas La Peine Brailler (3:26), James “Sugar Boy” Crawford’s Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters - "Overboard" (2:27), RAY CHARLES "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying ... (3:46), Etta James - A Sunday Kind Of Love (3:21), and JOHNNY ACE - "ANYMORE" (1955) (3:02), with Louis causing a spectacle dancing first with an overly flirtatious family friend Matty Mereaux (Lisa Nicole Carson) before dancing with his oldest daughter Cisely (Meagan Good), which sends Eve flying out the door in a fit of jealousy, hiding out in an old carriage house, where she witnesses her father having sex with Matty Mereaux, a traumatizing moment, as she places her father on a pedestal.  When she shares her secret with Cisely, a Daddy’s girl who is even more enamored with her father, her sister places doubt in her eyes, suggesting it may have been something far more innocent, demonstrating how easily memory can be reconfigured, and how a change in perspective may alter the way viewers understand existing truths. 

Among the most financially successful independent films of the year, part of the film’s popularity was the heavy endorsement of Chicago film critic Roger Ebert who placed it #1 on his Best of the Year lists for 1997, Roger Ebert: 1967-2006, with film executives surprised to discover that more than half the audience was white for what was essentially a black film, featuring well-developed characters often overlooked in movies, creating a successful crossover effect, playing in both arthouses and mainstream theaters alike, transcending the idea of a “black film” with no white characters.  The central focus is Eve’s relationship with her mother, father, and her siblings, yet perhaps the most intriguing is her close relationship with her aunt Mozelle, the spiritual center of their world and the anchor of the family, drawing independent parallels between the kindred spirits of Louis and his sister, both consumed by an emancipating free spirit, yet Mozelle has unusual sensitivity and insight, which manifests itself in the “gift of sight,” as she’s a psychic reader who can predict the future, spending her time healing the wounds of others in need, drawing upon her mythical ancestral heritage, which is outside the traditions of Western society, as black women are entrusted guardians of their family stories, reaching into southern black folk traditions that are being passed on to Eve.  While she’s able to see into the lives of others, she’s blind to her own deficiencies, feeling cursed, as all three of her husbands have suffered violent deaths, yet she stands in stark contrast to Elzora (Diahann Carroll), who is something of a carnival sideshow, telling fortunes for a dollar, viewed by Mozelle as a cheap stereotypical caricature of a voodoo priestess.  The beauty of Mozelle’s dynamic character is that she’s not exoticized, instead she’s part of the family legacy, an integral part of the landscape, part of the memory, and part of the surrounding community culture, bringing a unique artistic sophistication to the forefront, willingly sharing her experiences while commiserating with Eve, Eve's Bayou (1997) - Life Is Filled With Goodbyes Scene (8/11) | Movieclips YouTube (3:11).  While the film follows the female-centric traditions of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991), creating a provocative narrative around strong female characters in a rural setting, beautifully shot by Amy Vincent, edited by Terilyn A. Shropshire, where women have important roles behind the camera, yet it’s largely a performance-driven film, with a constantly curious Jurnee Smollett holding her own against more seasoned veterans, showing early signs of the actress she would become.  The child vantage point recalls Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), where truth has a way of remaining elusive, often disguised in various forms with deceptive vantage points, including a constantly shifting narrative, yet particularly for a 10-year old the essential drama surrounds Eve’s ability to unravel the truth.  The uncertainty and unreliability of memory remains a predominant theme, while the narration suggests she’s looking back at her life as an adult, recalling a series of impactful events that evolved into an indelible memory that changed the course of her life.   

Told in a Southern Gothic tradition, evoking the cultural heritage of backwoods Louisiana with hanging Spanish moss, Cypress trees, and water everywhere, where lies are woven into the fabric of the family, each seems to hold their own fabrication of the truth, largely covering up for the sins of the father, who ignores his familial obligations with his own wife, where that neglect leaves her a nervous wreck, alone and isolated, as her husband spends late night hours away from home as a serial philanderer.  In compensation, the oldest daughter Cisely sits and waits for her father to return home at night, receiving the affection usually reserved for the wife, while Roz overcompensates by heaping affection on their only son Poe (Jake Smollett).  Left out of the equation is Eve, confused by the moral ambiguities in the adults surrounding her, unable to see through the lies and deception.  She seeks refuge in Mozelle, sharing a psychic ability to see things before they happen, as Eve dreams about the death of Mozelle’s most recent husband shortly before he was killed in an accident.  Mozelle is simply one of the most fully realized characters in cinema, defiantly individualistic, emboldened and beautiful, never afraid to speak her mind, but she’s overprotective of her brother, knowing full-well the disgrace and disrespect he shows his own family, hiding his weakness and moral shortcomings, while both young daughters look up to him with unabated reverence, afraid their mother will drive him away.  But Mozelle has to face her own demons, especially when she meets a new man in her life, Julian Grayraven (Vondie Curtis-Hall, the director’s husband), a black Indian, where a spark of love is in the air, yet her track record is abysmal.  The story she tells Eve about the fate of one of her husbands is simply chilling, both in what it reveals about her and the awesome and mesmerizing power of a beautifully told story, Eve's Bayou (1997) - Mozelle, Hosea and Maynard Scene (7/11) | Movieclips YouTube (3:28).  Among the more eloquent scenes is a walk out on a country road by the side of the lake on a gorgeous sunny day with Mozelle and her sister-in-law Roz, being honest and open with each other, which has a way of opening doors, allowing a sliver of honesty into what seems like tragic lives.  What becomes more evident, as time goes on, is that each character has their own vantage point, seeing the same things, but in different ways.  This confusion leads to a spiral of self-delusion, as Eve grows protective of her sister, who comes to her with a horrible secret that brings tragic consequences, wanting to save her from the incestuous betrayal of her own father, looking to use spells and powers to eradicate what she perceives as evil, certain her father is to blame, looking to cast a magic spell upon him, even wishing he was dead.  The scenes between the sisters are fraught with power and emotion, but grow heart-wrenching at the strange turn of events, where the truth of what really happens remains ambiguous, with different outcomes depending on who you listen to, as every action has a ripple effect, yet in the end what stands out is a sisterly love that endures, uncertain about everything else in their future, but they still have each other, leaving audiences to grapple with the deeply complex moral implications. 

Harriet

Harriet Tubman

Director Kasi Lemmons (left) on the set with her actors

HARRIET             B-                   

USA  (125 mi)  2019  d: Kasi Lemmons

I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive.

―Harriet Tubman

Since so much of what we know about Harriet Tubman comes from children’s books, this is told like a children’s story, or like an often mythologized fable, which is how her story has been handed down through the years.  Tubman herself was illiterate and never learned to read or write, so specific details about her life remain sketchy, as they are largely first or second hand accounts, so much of her life has already been fictionalized.  Adhering to admitted hero worship, this feels designed to be etched into the minds of school children who watch it in their classrooms, with blacks finally having a role model they can call their own.  But the problem is this isn’t a representation of history, instead it’s a saintly portrayal, accentuating the heroism, embellishing history by turning her into a superhero, like something out of Marvel comics, where her initial fight to freedom by running away from slavery on her own from Dorchester County in Maryland to safe protection in the north in Philadelphia simply defied all odds, but to turn around and do it over and over again (nineteen times), each time collecting additional family members and an assemblage of more slaves, and be successful at it time after time, never losing anyone along the way, eventually rescuing more than 300 slaves to freedom over a ten year period on what is now called the Underground Railroad, is simply a phenomenal act of heroism and courage.  Yet the formation of the Railroad, with its many network of friends and safe places, is underemphasized in this film, as Harriet prefers to go it alone, giving her Messianic attributes, using song to call out slaves from the fields, like a bonafide Pied Piper, where this is an example where legend prevails over reality.  Placing her trust in God, she defies the existence of slavery as a moral abomination, with the film minimizing the more barbaric aspects, though it remains front and center through the acts of a few vile white characters brazenly emboldened with white supremacy, namely the slave owners of her family who relentlessly track her down, along with an assortment of particularly brutal hired slave catchers (two of them black men, historically fabricated, claiming poetic license, with one eventually joining sides with her, accentuating the choice of good over evil), turning her into an American Joan of Arc character, threatened with burning at the stake if captured, yet similarly convinced of her religious convictions, displaying an ability to lead battalions into battle, as she did for the Union forces in the Civil War, proving that adversity can be overcome through moral strength of character and a righteous conviction of good over evil.  Using African mythmaking and oral traditions as a film style, this heroine actually possesses supernatural powers, suffering from spells where she remains inert, falling to the ground, unable to move, as if struck by seizures, yet she’s able to see visions shortly before they actually happen, something she attributes to God, though this may be the result of a skull fracture she suffered at the hands of an overzealous slave master.  What’s essential to understand is that she constantly risks death for the benefit of others, routinely accomplishing what others think can’t be done, becoming a highly influential figure in the nation’s abolition of slavery.  

With British actress (with Nigerian heritage) Cynthia Erivo from Widows (2018) chosen to play Harriet, this created a backlash, stirring the waters of resentment, as Erivo has a history of controversial tweets aimed at belittling and mocking black Americans that many still find offensive, despite her contention that they were taken out of context.  Others have decided to boycott the film because the distributor Focus Features is owned by Comcast, a telecommunications conglomerate that may be violating the Reconstruction era Civil Rights Act of 1866 in bypassing the interests of black Americans in their programming, not only shunning black cable outlets but refusing to even consider race at all as a factor, questioning what constitutes fair representation, which is the subject of a current racial discrimination lawsuit (Supreme Court Hears Racial Discrimination Case Against ...).  In that same vein, some are outraged by the filmmaker’s choice to depict black slave catchers, with pretensions of being the best in all of the South, which is a complete historical fabrication, as they did not exist, yet the filmmakers are attempting to express the depths of corruption in the institution of slavery, where it was deeper than skin color, that the motivation of greed was so great that it could affect anyone.  Yet this undermines the historical narrative of how black men were actually victims of slavery, not the perpetrators of its violence.  By resorting to historical inaccuracies, Kasi Lemmons, the heralded black female director of such poetically rich films as EVE’S BAYOU (1997), also featuring a clairvoyant character, and TALK TO ME (2007), with Taraji P. Henson doing her own exaggerated Foxey Brown imitation, may have inadvertently continued the disturbing negative stereotype of the black male in movies.  But after all is said and done, it turns out Erivo is not the problem with the film, and is instead one of its greatest strengths, while the narrative is simplistic and all too predictable, leaving little in doubt, where we actually learn next to nothing about Harriet Tubman, never rising to the level of a Civil War epic, where the biggest surprise is the choice to use a formulaic and more conventional biographical structure, which is a 180 degree turn from her previous films, which distinguished themselves by taking great risks.  Maybe it’s a new era in filmmaking, where the fear of financing black history is considered too great a risk, with producers only wanting to finance what they consider sure winners, forcing the filmmakers to play to a specific target audience.  It feels like the same mistake Steven Spielberg made with THE COLOR PURPLE (1985) and AMISTAD (1997), where the intent was to be informative, yet in the interests of making it understandable for school children, even printing out accompanying resource material for classrooms, they fudged some of the facts, altering the historical reality. 

The film opens in Dorchester County in Maryland, with Araminta Ross (Harriet), known as “Minty,” looking to start a family with John Tubman (Zachary Momoh), who was a free black man.  Marriage between a slave and a free man was not uncommon in this part of the country, the Eastern shore of Maryland, as over half the black population was free.  Marriages, however, were not legally bound, but an informal arrangement.  Any children born follow the mother’s status, so if they are free, the children are born free, but if they remain slaves, their children would be born into slavery.  Minty’s father was also a free man who continued to help out for income, while her mother remained a slave, working in the main house.  Under a Manumission Agreement with the former slave owner (now deceased), her mother was to be freed at the age of 45, also applying to any of her children, but his son, the current owner Edward Brodess (Mike Marunde), rips up the agreement in defiance, claiming he has no intention of honoring a piece of paper, angry that they hired an attorney to read the provisions, as if that amounted to insubordination.  His son Gideon (Joe Alwyn), who befriended Minty as a child, having nursed him back to health following typhoid, now rubs her nose in the depravity of her situation, reminding her who’s boss, never letting her forget it.  Facing a life in bondage, however, is more than she can stand, willing to risk death, so despite her husband’s objections, not wanting to jeopardize his free status, she sets off on foot for Philadelphia, about 100 miles away, evading the main roads and bridges, remaining hidden throughout the journey, though there are unnamed white farmers along the way who willingly help, transporting her hidden in their cargo, shielding her from detection.  In Philadelphia she meets William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), an ardent abolitionist who transcribes the story of each escaped slave (historical records have been published), allowing her to choose a free name, introducing her to Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monáe), a free-born black woman who owns her own home, quickly offering a room while putting her to work.  Missing her family, she decides to return for them, but this turns out to be much more difficult than expected, as guards are posted on the roads, with slave catchers, along with her nemesis Gideon, who plots revenge.  Changing laws make it even more difficult, like the Fugitive Slave Act, requiring slaves be returned to their rightful owners, even in free states, driving them even further into Canada, adding a growing sense of desperation leading into the Civil War.  While it attempts to feature historical abolitionists, with Harriet offering a fiery speech that convinces them in no uncertain terms not to lose sight of what’s at stake, literally obsessed with freeing slaves in bondage, a practice that continues while joining the Union Army, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to lead an armed military raid at Combahee Ferry, demonstrating the value of black troops in combat while liberating more than 700 escaped slaves.  Much of the film is shot in actual historical locations, beautifully captured by cinematographer John Toll, particularly the back woods and streams, adding a degree of authenticity to what we see, making this not only harrowing, but a strange and mystical journey, made even more exhilarating by adding the choice music of Nina Simone, Nina Simone - Sinnerman (vinyl rip) YouTube (10:12), though much of the film feels contrived and rushed at the end (cut for budgetary reasons), adding mythical scenes for effect, though all along she believes she is God’s ambassador carrying out His will.  Living into her 90’s, the film relies upon an onscreen scrolling text to detail all her accomplishments, some of which might seem surprising, effectively elevating her status with the public at large, yet much of her real humanity remains elusively out of reach.