To Sleep with Anger

. . . as I have ever seen on film. Danny Glover is an incredibly convincing devilish character - tossed into the midst of your average, striving African-American family. To see his interplay with the parents - who thought they had left their small town ways and superstitions behind - as well as with the two sons - an almost classical prodigal son story - was to witness what surely was one of the best movies of a great movie decade. This movie cemented my status as an ardent admirer of the work of Charles Burnett, surely the cream of the new crop of talented American directors. This is a very suspenseful film, one that will enlighten those with a desire to learn more about the Black experience in America.

Maybe it was the bizarre photo of a smirking, card-holding Danny Glover that always gave me the wrong impression of this film. I'm not entirely sure what I expected it to be, but I'm relatively certain I wasn't expecting a quiet family drama.

Writer/director Charles Burnett doesn't reach hard for big statements. The film appears to take place in the 1950s-60s (I couldn't be sure), but the time period isn't chosen out of a desire to create a plot focused on race relations. In fact, the drama is entirely centered around a single small family, and a wild friend from way in the past (Harry, played by Danny Glover). Cinematographer Walt Lloyd creates a familiar environment, whether or not it happens to be personally familiar to the viewer. Everything feels warm and slightly worn, including personalities and ways of speaking.

Although my personal family history couldn't be more different than the family depicted in this film, the character of Samuel "Babe Brother" (Richard Brooks) really hit home for me. His attitude on life and relationship with his father mirrors my own all too closely. It's the honestly of character depiction and interaction that brings out so much truth from Charles Burnett's writing. Everything comes together to make a perfectly realized story of absolute truth. This may just be a great film.

Danny Glover shows up at the door of his old friends and moves in. Over the next few weeks, a lot of stuff happens.

Charles Burnett's movie seems to be a slice of life piece, showing the variety and contradictions of a small Black community, nominally in Los Angeles. There are tough guys and weak guys, but it's a solid working-class community where the choir sings polite gospel, and the preacher comes to visit the visit and chide them for using "old-fashioned" obeah cures instead of prayer.

This isn't the world of rap or youth, but of the older, settled community. In some ways it seems idyllic, with no drug dealers or gang violence, the standard modern cinematic image of Black communities. There's no rap music, but there is the blues and a small boy playing a trumpet very loudly.

It's warm and frequently silly, and beneath it is a had recognition of being unregarded. I found it very familiar, and if the older folks had been speaking Yiddish, i might have been, if not my own home growing up, then a cousin's, or that of one of my father's old friends.

This film reminded me a bit of some of Toni Morrison's novels-about the shared heritage of American descendants of slaves, the grief and the magic. The film begins in a Black neighborhood that is if anything a more virtuous reflection of postwar middle-class white neighborhoods: neatly-kept bungalows with big yards, kids playing in the street (and with pigeons on the rooftop) and practicing musical instruments (a trumpet, in this case), a paterfamilias who keeps chickens and irons his own slacks, a mother who supplements her shopping with produce from her own garden and works as a midwife, two handsome sons with wives and a (quiet, respectful) child each.... The main problem is that the younger son's wife is bored silly by the agricultural table-talk at Sunday dinner: she sells real estate, and that is what land is to her. Also, the roof leaks, and the two sons can't get together to fix it.

Then Gideon remarks that he can't find his "toby" (thank you, subtitles, and also Wikipedia for mentioning this as a synonym of a mojo), a teapot with marbles in it falls to the floor and breaks, and Harry arrives. Harry is from that place in the South from which Gideon and Suzie emigrated when their sons were children. Harry is the drinking, gambling, womanizing friend who keeps his possessions in a few cardboard boxes instead of a bungalow. He draws to him a whole crowd of Gideon's fellow emigrés, mostly men, and with them comes fierce misogyny and the potential for violence.

Enough with the plot summary. This is a rich and entertaining film. I see that many of the other reviews are from this very month, so I guess it has just started streaming.

For the last several visits to the video store, I've been drawn to this film, but it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally rented it. And I'm really glad I did.

This film glows with delicately-drawn character studies. It is a testament to the effectiveness of subtle storytelling. The story is good, and the characters are gentle but passionate. They are middle class folks who live in a pleasant neighborhood in LA. They have left the hardscrabble life of the South -- with all the attendant superstitions and fears -- behind. Or so they hope...

The responses that the characters have to the presence of evil in their midst are refreshing and true. Though the film is subtle, it never drags, gets sentimental, or sloshes into easy cliches.

Danny Glover is wonderful, but so are most of the other actors. Oh, it's about family, but in a way that attracts us. There are no tried and true gimmicks, no diseases du jour, no soapy interludes. Just people. Doing the best they can. They are sometimes funny, sometimes foolish, sometimes predictable. One thing we notice: they can seem excessively patient with out-of- town visitors...