Sinners: A Triumph
Ryan Coogler is making waves this week for not only releasing Sinners, a critically acclaimed, financially successful film without being part of a larger franchise, but also for having secured an almost unheard-of copyright deal. According to a recent Vulture article, Warner Bros. will return the rights of Sinners to Coogler 25 years after its release. Coogler states this was a personal symbolic decision, citing ownership over a film about black ownership as “the only motivation.” Having experienced all two hours and eighteen minutes of this genre-blending period piece shot on 65mm film and presented nationwide in digital IMAX, it’s much easier to see his rationale. Sinners is not only a stylistically bold passion project through and through, but also uses its horror aspects to serve as a greater social commentary on cultural assimilation. [Spoilers for Sinners follow]
At the center of the film stands Club Juke, a juke joint that twins nicknamed “Smoke” and “Stack” (both played by Michael B. Jordan) repurpose from an old saw mill to bring the money (and a truckload of Irish beer) they earned in Chicago back into their Mississippi community. At the outset of their first night of operation, a patron attempts to pay for a bottle of corn liquor with 30 cents and two wooden nickels “good at the department store in town.” One twin insists on only accepting legal U.S. tender, but the other encourages a more lenient approach. He stresses the hours of hard labor the old man spent to earn every one of those thirty cents, and that they “gotta make them feel like this is a place they can call their own.” In this sense, Club Juke is Wakanda on a smaller scale: a symbol of undiluted Black identity and culture. Halfway through the film, three white vampires appear at the club’s doorstep, offering their patronage (in the form of gold coins) and music (in the form of the unsettling folk song, “Pick Poor Robin Clean”). On top of the covert threat of planning to murder and convert every single soul inside, the vampires’ request for an invitation is outright rejected on the grounds of Smoke and Stack’s insistence on maintaining an exclusive Delta Blues atmosphere.
This dichotomy between the living, the undead, and what each represents is reinforced through two other musical numbers present in the film. The first takes place within the club as Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (musician Miles Caton in his acting debut), cousin of Smoke and Stack, takes the stage to perform “I Lied to You.” According to the film’s narrator, Sammie’s musical prowess is true and powerful enough to “conjure spirits from the past and the future.” This manifests in a sprawling, time and space-bending sequence in which West African musicians and dancers blend with funk guitarists, turntable DJs, and breakdancers, manifesting amongst the ordinary 1930s Mississippi townsfolk. Along with the IMAX steadicam weaving in and out of the crowd, Ludwig Göransson’s score seamlessly blends these different genres with Sammie’s voice to portray a literal cultural melting pot, celebrating the history of Black music and creating a sense of unbreakable cultural identity.
The second number takes place outside, after most of the patrons have been sent home, only to be converted into a family of vampires once unprotected from Club Juke’s walls. The same Black folk who had earlier burned the house down to Delta Blues were now performing Irish jigs in lockstep to “Rocky Road to Dublin,” a traditional Irish folk song sung by the chillingly charismatic head vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell). Their personalities, identities, and very souls have essentially been stripped from their bodies, eyes and smiles glowing eerily in the dead of night. Such visual and musical dissonance creates a horrifying tone of defeat for the kind of world Club Juke represents. Who are we if we’re cut off from the music and culture that made us, rendered unable to pass it down to future generations?
However, such defeat is decidedly short-lived. Sammie and, just as importantly, his music, survive through all the bloody carnage. Once the morning comes, he briefly seeks the salvation of his pastor father before rejecting that as well in favor of keeping his “devil’s music” alive. In the ultimate tribute to Coogler’s grandfather and Uncle James, Sammie’s 1990s counterpart is played by Chicago Blues legend Buddy Guy in a mid-credits epilogue cameo appearance. It's a fourth wall-breaking moment dripping with poignancy and self-indulgence, bringing the themes of enduring cultural identity home.
A handful of moviegoers at my screening on Friday walked out before this scene had a chance to play in full, and I can understand why. Sinners is an unwieldy, deeply personal film full of ideas that could sustain at least three or four other movies. Coogler takes full advantage of his final cut agreement with Warner Bros. to deliver a true R-rated Southern Gothic horror blockbuster full of sex, gore, and numerous musical sequences, and those risks paid off wonderfully. The film represents a triumph for Coogler and an inspiration for Black artists who refuse to compromise their vision in favor of reaching a wider audience. After suffering years of blows to the industry in the form of COVID-19, union strikes, tax refund film-shelving, and wildfires, the success of Sinners is a glorious miracle.