single serving review: miracle at st. anna
having learned film review from nothing but an episode of “ebert & roeper” and a handful of movie blogs on the internet, i’m going to assume that at some point in every director’s career he (or she - but let’s be honest, the ladies don’t really get into playing soldier) decides that they need a world war II story in their filmography. this is spike lee’s entry.
generally regarded for incorporating race relations into his movies, spike lee’s dubya dubya eye eye options were pretty much limited to a few of the most well-known afro-centric soldier groups, most notably the 92nd infantry division “buffalo soldiers” and the tuskegee airmen, and i’m glad he chose the less well-known groups of the two. the movie necessarily takes liberties with historical detail for the benefit of narrative and for the most part it’s effective, especially when dealing with the pseudo-mysticism of the plot’s macguffin device (in the form of the ponte santa trinita statue head).
unfortunately, the movie is pretty heavy-handed at times in its stereotypes of both southern-white-ignorant-good-ol-boys and southern-black-ignorant-religious-types and at some points the score attempts to jarringly and quite aggressively undermine some genuine moments. all in all though, the movie’s a great take on the lesser filmed allied campaign in italy, and even lesser focused-on contributions of segregated african-americans in the armed forces.
3/5 partisans
