Director Brewer aims for the far reaches of blood-gorged Southron melodrama, tempered with a generally positive arc of redemption and revitalisation. It takes aim at the homogeneity of contemporary American culture; in moments like when, appalled by her mother’s contempt for her, Ricci does not break down in tears but instead bashes her with a broom, it represents the ultimate rejection of Oprah-ised cuddliness and the embrace of Jerry Springer anarchy.
Some sequences, as when Ricci furls herself in the chain and sleeps likes a perverse Eve entwined with her private serpent, and when Jackson and Ricci decide to confront their demons by heading into a juke joint and grinding out some evil moves, are astounding, and nearly send Black Snake Moan towards freak-out classic status. Jackson’s rendition of “Stack-O-Lee” is worth an Oscar on its own.
But Brewer’s story hews to some familiar lines. The problem with Black Snake Moan in the end isn’t that it’s trashy and bizarre; it’s that it isn’t quite trashy and bizarre enough, never really flies off the handle as much as it hints it will, eventually washing up not too great a distance from The Spitfire Grill or The Shipping News as a cheering tale of outsiders muddling through. Hustle and Flow had a more clever arrival at a defiantly happy ending, though both films share Brewer’s original, anarchic take on American social canards, and it’s got an energy, a richness of scope, and a palette immune to the strictures of good taste, that dwarfs the likes of Paul Haggis and the Coen Brothers in its take on the ghost-dreams of old Americana.
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