The delta – a place for convergence, a growing gap between two entities, or a triangular connectivity. Whatever your preferred interpretation of delta is, it’s applicable to Sinners, the latest film from Ryan Coogler. In the most literal of senses, the film is about the Mississippi Delta, the home of one of America’s greatest cultural touchstones.
The region’s blues music is the driving force behind the film’s narrative and its emotional core. But Coogler also wants to make it known that it’s the predominant force in modern American culture. Its history engrained in the very fiber that makes up our collective cultural consciousness. Blues is a bridge from both afterlife to realm of the living, as well as the bridge between our past, present and future.
In what is indisputably the film’s grandest gesture, Coogler visualizes these connections with bombastic fervor.
Blues transcends our ancestral and modern realities, allowing everything to exist all at once, forever connected through the cosmos of time and space. Coogler goes so far as to end the sequence with an expression of the overarching celestial forces that bind us – just in case it was already abundantly clear.
The musical number comes in the form of a stunning one-take throughout the juke joint that serves as the story’s main setting. The energy of the sequence is engrossing. The literal translation of the images is quite obvious in what they aim to convey, but Coogler directs with such focused confidence, it’s hard to leave the scene as anything other than awed.
It ends up being the film’s most illustrative and exciting use of the IMAX format. More stunning than what any fight or action sequences can offer (although, Sinners delivers in those departments as well). Suffice to say, you should seek out an IMAX screening if one is available to you.
Sinners invites a wholly immersive viewing experience. Not in an intimidating pretentious way, but rather in a warm, welcoming way. Coogler and his team, including cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw and editor Michael Shawver, create an accessibly bold visual language. Cross cuts highlight the narrative and thematic parallels of given moments or images.
Although it communicates ideas with obvious clarity, Sinners is far from committing the heavy-handed messaging sins that plague so many contemporary movies.
Much like Barbie or Nope (two of the best releases from the last few years), Sinners is a beautifully bold modern blockbuster film from a visionary director. All are defined by big ideas playing out within the sandbox of familiar genres. Coogler exhibits a graceful yet unapologetic confidence operating within the vampire genre.
Rather than getting caught within the genre trappings, Coogler uses them to explore the particularities of questions that interest him. It offers the perfect playground thematic exploration.
White vampires who feast on the joy that blues music brings to otherwise pained black communities are a not-so-subtle nod to bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, or The Beatles co-opting the sounds of the American Deep South for their own critical and commercial success.
The movie starts with a preamble about music that connects the dead to the land of the living, offering examples from Irish, Indigenous American, and West African heritage. The through-line of that connective tissue is self-evident throughout the film.
It’s no coincidence the main vampire (Jack O’Connell) is an Irish American we first meet as he’s hunted down by Indigenous Americans, who then ends up recruiting Klans members for his quest to infiltrate and feast on Black Americans. The impact of British imperial rule on all of these groups (as well as Mississippi Delta Chinese American communities) hides in plain sight throughout all character interactions.
Sinners also understands that all great vampire movies require a degree of seduction. However, the seductive nature of the narrative is reversed here. It’s not the allure of becoming a member of the unliving tribe, but the undead who are seduced by what the music of others can offer to them.
Although the film stars Michael B. Jordan in a fantastic dual role with a cool ass character introduction scene, the heart and soul of the film is the Sammy character, played masterfully by newcomer Miles Caton. When Sammy slides on his guitar and belts out his heart it captivates characters within the diegesis and audience members alike.
The previously mentioned grand musical number hinges on Caton’s ability to deliver a convincingly moving performance as Sammy. Along with composer and music supervisor, Ludwig Göransson, Caton does just that. Musicality is at the core of the film’s thesis, and Göransson’s ability to put together a soundtrack that properly conveys that is nothing short of spectacular.
The supporting cast is rounded out by the likes of Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, and Delroy Lindo, who are all superb. Lindo is particularly remarkable, reminding us that his ability to completely control a scene is still second to none.
Some might find that the themes of Sinners fail to neatly wrap up, but the film’s refusal to compromise on what convention tells us it ought to be is unflinching. Coogler loves to tell stories about where we come from and what we owe to those cosmic connections. He does so again brilliantly with Sinners, and does it within a thrilling, full throttled ride. Proof that movies can still simultaneously excite and stimulate.
Sinners will exist as many things to many people. Whichever version you choose to consume, remember to cherish it. Rare are the films that can inspire such deserved universal appreciation for the artform.
A welcomed reminder of why we go to the theaters.
