Mudbound

Or PTSD as it is also called. Although here you have more of a Welcoming Stress Disorder ... because while in war, the skin color did not matter, back at home (in the US) for some it more than mattered. You may not feel comfortable with what certain people are doing here - but they all have their "reasons" (or at least education and prejudices they grew up with) why ... not that it hurts less what they do.

An interesting look and a friendship build over something horrific two of the characters went through ... and also showing how little certain groups of people had to say. Still to this day in some regions for sure - and why that matters and why it should not be that way anymore. A good drama with a lot of good actors in it. Not an easy watch by any stretch of the imagination though ...

Greetings again from the darkness. The Jim Crow South and WWII have each spawned many movies, and both play a crucial role in director Dee Rees' (BESSIE) adaptation (co-written with Virgil Williams) of Hillary Jordan's 2008 novel. It's the story of two families, the Jacksons and the McAllans, striving for daily survival in rural Mississippi during the 1940's.

The Jacksons are a black family tenant-farming on land owned by the white McAllans who transplanted from Memphis. This land is so remote and life so hard, that tractors are almost non-existent and mules are rare enough. There is such a bleakness to this existence that all seem oblivious to the always present mudhole leading to the front door of their shack. Elation comes in the form of a privacy wall constructed around the outdoor family shower, or the sweetness of a bar of chocolate. Soon after D-Day, Florence and Hap Jackson send their son Ronsel off to war. The same thing is happening across the 200 acre farm to Jamie McAllan, brother of Henry and son of Pappy.

A shifting of multiple narrators throughout allows us access to the perspectives of multiple characters. We get both black and white views on war and farming. Days in war bring injury, death and dirt … not so dissimilar to life on a Mississippi farm. When Ronsel and Jamie return from war, they are both suffering. Ronsel can't come to grips with how he was treated as a redeemer in Europe, but just another 'black man' being targeted by the KKK at home, while Jamie is shell-shocked into alcoholism and an inability to function in society. The parallels between the war experience of Ronsel and Jamie lead them to a friendship that ultimately can't be good for either.

Jason Clarke plays Henry and Carey Mulligan, his wife Laura. Jonathan Banks ("Breaking Bad", "Better Call Saul") is the ultimate nasty racist Pappy, while Garrett Hedlund is Jamie. Rob Morgan and Mary J Blige are Hap and Florence Jackson, and Jason Mitchell (STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON) is Ronsel. While all perform well, it's Mitchell and Hedlund who are particular standouts, as is a radio reference of the great Lou Boudreau. Rachel Morrison's cinematography is terrific and captures both the hardscrabble life of Mississippi, but also the frantic and tragic abruptness of war (in just a couple of scenes).

Racism is always difficult to watch, and in that era, everyone had their place/plight in life. It was a structure built to ensure misery for most, and one guaranteed to collapse. The acting here is very strong and the film is well made. The story-telling is consistently disquieting and periodically unbearable. Still, we are all tired (or should be) of hatred. The somewhat hopeful ending caused an audible sigh of relief from an audience of viewers who had been angry and clinched for more than two hours. And though there is no joy in Mudville, we remain hopeful, even today.

Racism, war, violence, female solidarity … however relevant these subjects are, they seem rather exhausted on a cinematic level especially when the Awards season starts.

Indeed, on the simple basis of its trailer, one would believe that "Mudbound" is simply Netflix making its "Color Purple", "Mississippi Burning" or "12 Years a Slave". Maybe. But there is something fresh and original in Dee Rees' adaptation of Hillary Jordan's novel and it's a considerable achievement that owes a lot to the writing, the directing and the unusual structure and patient pace of the film. Sure it is a companion to all the movies I mentioned but it has a sort of haunting quality, something that sticks to your mind and dwarfs a rather good film like "The Help".

What is "Mudbound" about? That's not an easy question to answer, a few negative critics pointed out the film's lack of focus because it's a multi-character story and there's no lead or supporting roles at first stance, just as they criticized the overuse of voice-over. I didn't mind the voice-over much, the story is so complex and multi-layered that I'd rather have a voice-over explaining things and make it my 'privilege' to pay or not pay attention to it. The lack of focus now is just a matter of half-empty or half-full glass. But here's a way to present the film in simpler terms. "Mudbound" is about two families, the McAllans (white) and the Jacksons (black) living in two neighboring farms in the Mississippi of the 40's.

Laura (Carey Mulligan) married Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke), less moved by love than a desire to escape from her "old maid" condition, and marital life made her feel relevant and important. Henry isn't the romantic type but no bad man either, and I was glad the movie didn't take one path I expected. No, it's not about that kind of abuse. The McAllans are a steady couple and the Jacksons form a united clan whose patriarch Hap (Rob Morgan) is the descendant of former slaves who worked on that same land, Hap's dreams is to own it in the future although he's not fooled by the worth of any act of property in that racist state. The Jacksons might strike as too 'virtuous' and taking very solemn poses but once you get drawn by the atmosphere and the hostility they constantly face, you realize that "disunion" couldn't be an option. Hap and his wife Florence (Oscar- worthy Mary J. Blige) can't afford the luxury of not being at least "happy together".

But the film doesn't venture yet in these unsafe territories; the tone is only set with the presence of Henry's father: Pappy McAllan, a bigoted racist played by Jonathan Banks and whom we suspect will act like a ticking bomb. Henry buys a farm and Laura follows him, circumstances of life will force Florence to work for the McAllans, but as long as these two families mind their own business, so to speak, nothing seem ready to create conflicts. Except for what sets up the second act of the film, the second World War. The merit of "Mudbound" is to paint notable differences at first until you realize that the two families have a lot more in common. This 'common denominator' is the core of "Mudbound": the bond between the two veterans of each family: Henry's brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and Ronsel Jackson (Jason Mitchell). Here are two men who've seen hell in Europe, the things we expect and that are not overplayed, but they also lived the exhilaration of liberating countries and discovering a fraternity that transcends racial barriers.

"Mudbound" breaks a taboo seldom explored by the movies: the hypocritical treatment of Black soldiers. America takes pride for having liberated Europe but not to the point of questioning the internal "prisons", and this is the concealed wound the film tries to heal. Ronsel is the most complex of all the characters because he embraced his country's idealism and couldn't believe he wouldn't be rewarded for it. Jamie suffers from PTSD and finds in Ronsel the only man capable to understand him, "Mudbound" began like the stories of two women, Laura and Florence who were growing to understand each other, a sort of "Color Purple" of the 2010's, directed by a woman and with enough narrative to play like a feminist hymn, but no, this is a movie about two men, Ronsel and Jamie who grow to respect each other because they found in the mud of the battle-fight the universally human bond. You know what that movie truly reminded me of? "The Defiant Ones".

The image that immediately comes to mind from that Stanley Kramer's masterpiece of 1958 is Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as two ex-convicts chained together and escaping from the police. They hate each other, they still carry some bits of racism but the first display of solidarity happens when they're stuck in a deep pool of mud and must climb their way to the ground. Mud isn't just about dirt or about ground but can be a powerful metaphor of something uniting two men, a metaphor for an even dirtier stuff, when "natural enemies" discover they're equally worthless when put in the same 'mud'... unless they try to overcome it. "Mudbound" carries this image but it's less about 'mud' than it is about a color-blind "bound". The mud is either literal in the film or represented by the trauma of war… and also the suffering of women, while not the focus, "Mudbound" has a saying on that subject as well.

"Mudbound" is a proof that Netflix is becoming a major contender in the years to come, I don't know whether the film will meet with Oscar recognition but there should be some love to the haunting cinematography, the screenplay and Mary J. Blige should be a lock if Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis won for what I believe are lesser movies.

With Mudbound, a tale of two families in good(terrible) ol' Mississippi in the 1940s and the daily struggles for the men and women getting by in the most rural elements imaginable, I wanted to like it more, even love it. The period feel and authenticity Rees and her team have makes an impression and it's all surely lived in to where you feel the pain and literal dirt for white and blacks (so, in other words, a brief mention of 'A Tale of Two Cities' has textual resonance).

But the first half is rough going with way overdone narration, with too much that gives more information and dictating character beats than near necessary, robbing moments of poetry and grace. It almost gives the impression of a tougher/rougher shot yet far less eloquent version of The Southerner by Renoir. Not bad but not... Cinematic enough. It feels too literal a translation of a book (and it is an adaptation of one, unread by me).

Yet, once Hedlund and Mitchell, who don't get too developed before they go off to war and only get some in the scenes when they're in battle (all done in brutal and brief bites), come home from the war, the drama all around gets intensified. The narration gives way to emotional scenes between characters - or just conversations showing an understanding that wouldn't have happened if not ironically for the horrors of war- and all the acting by everyone goes to 100 (Jonathan Banks shows a much... "Poppy" kind of side to his talents).

It may be more of a history lesson than anything else, but the intimacy Rees has with her performers gets the material to its peak too. If you aren't sure of where it's going, or want Rees to stick to the farm scenes and not cut back to the war, just wait and the patience will pay off.

Wasn't going to go to this, but so very glad I did. Netflix has made a film worthy of the highest praise. If the book is better than this movie, this is a book for your library. The entire screening audience became engrossed in this movie, so quiet you could hear a pin drop on the carpet. The story unfolds necessarily slow and snares you. The narrations by different characters at different times, helps to pull the viewer in lightly forcing a personal touch to each story. The different perspectives of the storytellers is blatantly obvious while the movie spares little in realistic actions that make the viewer cringe at times, laugh at times and cry at times. it doesn't hold back The acting is top notch, even though I had only heard of a hand full of these players, one not even being an actor. The cinematography is up there, crisp and a great player in the mood of this movie. It had educational moments too, while not being preachy, it just shows and tells where we have been. It is also a movie for our times. People from the screening audience are still taking about this move 4 days later. An Oscar contender this should be.