Steam Press, Back Door
My Brother's Wedding (1983)
directed by Charles Burnett
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
The day-to-day vignettes, from fathers exhorting the younger generation to go back to Mississippi and work like mules, to that wordless, beautiful introduction of Pierce's romantic interest in the doorway of his parents' dry cleaning shop, seem more relevant to Burnett's characters than the larger story that Pierce moves through. Small scenes are warm and gentle, like when a woman places a call to Natchez to tell relatives that someone died. Each time the teenage girl appears to flirt with Pierce, or Pierce meets up with his date, we're aware of the repetitions that add up to a life.
Pierce is often bored, or frustrated, but I don't think that either of the plot's major narratives - the death of a friend or a brother's wedding - add much to his conflict but melodrama. Not that death is uncommon, or should be in stories, but Burnett does so much with Pierce alone, and the family and circle of friends he regularly encounters, that the stark examples of an upwardly mobile sibling and trouble-plagued pal are like tromping around a canoe in combat boots. The two hour running time at least lets everything settle down, ironing out the more obvious creases.
Still, it's a fine movie. From the random men who appear at the dry cleaners to complain or offer advice to that murmur of a chase along Arlington Avenue, most scenes let you pay attention to the color photography, to faces, and to the passage of time. The end of the country is right there, but as in Killer of Sheep, no one ever sees the ocean. Someone supposedly connected with the production mentioned in an Amazon customer review that the pace of a 35mm film is different from a 16mm film, and that the amateur cast is more obvious here than in Killer of Sheep. I agree but think that the script - relative to the fiancée and her family especially - reads flat sometimes.
directed by Charles Burnett
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
The day-to-day vignettes, from fathers exhorting the younger generation to go back to Mississippi and work like mules, to that wordless, beautiful introduction of Pierce's romantic interest in the doorway of his parents' dry cleaning shop, seem more relevant to Burnett's characters than the larger story that Pierce moves through. Small scenes are warm and gentle, like when a woman places a call to Natchez to tell relatives that someone died. Each time the teenage girl appears to flirt with Pierce, or Pierce meets up with his date, we're aware of the repetitions that add up to a life.
Pierce is often bored, or frustrated, but I don't think that either of the plot's major narratives - the death of a friend or a brother's wedding - add much to his conflict but melodrama. Not that death is uncommon, or should be in stories, but Burnett does so much with Pierce alone, and the family and circle of friends he regularly encounters, that the stark examples of an upwardly mobile sibling and trouble-plagued pal are like tromping around a canoe in combat boots. The two hour running time at least lets everything settle down, ironing out the more obvious creases.
Still, it's a fine movie. From the random men who appear at the dry cleaners to complain or offer advice to that murmur of a chase along Arlington Avenue, most scenes let you pay attention to the color photography, to faces, and to the passage of time. The end of the country is right there, but as in Killer of Sheep, no one ever sees the ocean. Someone supposedly connected with the production mentioned in an Amazon customer review that the pace of a 35mm film is different from a 16mm film, and that the amateur cast is more obvious here than in Killer of Sheep. I agree but think that the script - relative to the fiancée and her family especially - reads flat sometimes.
posted by NPK at 8:05 AM
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