The Catholic Weekly 28 June 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 21 28, June, 2020 VISTA WILL BE TAKING A SHORT BREAK ... But watch this page for more interesting news locally and from around the world The hell of war and a heart of darkness CIVIL WAR General William Tecumseh Sherman is said to have observed, with fa- mous succinctness, that “war is hell.” With the rich but harrow- ing drama Da 5 Bloods (Net- flix), director and co-writer Spike Lee makes the point that the burdensome, some- times crippling, legacy of armed conflict can be equally infernal. Lee and his script collab- orators follow a quartet of veterans who formed a deep bond during their service in Vietnam as they return there five decades later. Of the four, deeply trau- matised Paul (Delroy Lindo) emerges as the most promi- nent. Together with prosperous Eddie (Norm Lewis), ex-med- ic Otis (Clarke Peters), whose fondness for OxyContin makes his pals nervous, and barfly Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Paul has made the trip for two reasons. The first is to retrieve the body of Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), the group’s squad commander and revered mentor in mat- ters moral and spiritual. The other, secret, motive is to recover a cache of CIA gold the friends discovered after coming across a downed American aircraft during the war. This find shortly preceded Norman’s death in combat and his corpse lies nearby the wrecked plane. The journey through the jungle that follows becomes a nightmare. It also serves as a springboard for Lee’s far-ranging reflections on race relations, politics, faith and the corrupting effects of greed. In fact, Lee uses this quest – on which the ex-comrades are joined, at the last minute, by Paul’s estranged son, Da- vid (Jonathan Majors), who wants in on the windfall – as a parable for the whole Afri- can American experience of modern times. In the process, Norman becomes a Christ figure while the wearing of a “Make America Great Again” hat is used as a symbol of both ethical bankruptcy and mental instability. Lee’s creative daring as his film reaches its climax combines with a wrenching performance from Lindo to deliver a searing emotional payoff. Yet to reach it, view- ers have to endure incidents of shocking mayhem as well as a heavy-handed effort, early on, to give them a crash course in African American history. Those on the lookout for cultural markers, meanwhile, will note Lee’s visual hom- age to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 epic Apocalypse Now as well as a photo of Norman that recalls the iconic 1960s image of Black Panther Par- ty co-founder Huey Newton seated in a so-called peacock chair. Evocatively, the soundtrack is dominated by songs from Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On . The French involvement in Southeast Asia is person- ified both by anti-landmine philanthropist Hedy (Melanie Thierry), with whom David strikes up a flirtation, and by Jonathan Majors, IsiahWhitlock, Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters and Delroy Lindo star in Da 5 Bloods . PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/DAVID LEE, NETFLIX her moral foil, wheeler-deal- er Desroche (Jean Reno), to whom Paul and the others turn to export the gold. And the romantic involve- ment of some GIs with Viet- namese women is recalled by Otis’ reunion with an old flame, Tien (Le Y Lan). Though it ends with a sense of resolution, the tone of Da 5 Bloods grows progres- sively grimmer for most of its running time. Thus, when Otis exclaims – after one of many startling, often brutal, developments – “Madness, madness!” the observation seems all too apt. Amid the social turmoil The journey through the jungle that follows becomes a nightmare. It also serves as a springboard for Lee’s far-ranging reflections on race rela- tions, politics, faith and the corrupting effects of greed.” ENTERTAINMENT sparked by the death of George Floyd, Lee’s harsh reckoning of black life in the last 50 years is, for those who can bear it, a painfully timely one. Though his movie has a great deal of darkness, it also, ultimately, has heart. The film, rated MA 15+, is not for the faint-hearted. It contains much bloody vi- olence, including some ex- treme gore, gruesome imag- es, many profane expressions, some milder swearing, per- vasive rough and crude lan- guage and mature references to sexuality. - CNS ¾ ¾ John Mulderig DA 5 BLOODS STREAMING ON NETFLIX