Baadasssss! is intensely personal cinema, a complex drama that links actor-director Mario Van Peebles with his filmmaking father, Melvin Van Peebles.
Through the filmmaking, and inside the film itself, the son visits the sins of the father and discovers a triumph, a legacy, a purpose. With all the emotional warts exposed but the love shining through, Mario not only directs Baadasssss! but he also plays his father as a younger man.
The effect is to turn this enterprise into a compelling docu-drama, although, if you did not know Mario's identity -- if you just took him as a handsome, quality actor who happened to look a lot like the real Melvin in his late 30s -- this film would still function as an effective drama. So it is no cheap trick to make it a family affair.
The story, adapted to the screen by Mario and co-writer Dennis Haggerty from Melvin's autobiographical book, revolves around the production of Melvin's revolutionary black American film, Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song.
When it came out in 1971, it shattered Hollywood's racist ideas about black audiences and their movie interests. The low-budget, rough-hewn, street-wise film, which starred Melvin as the title character Sweetback, also spawned the era of blaxploitation cinema in the 1970s.
Baadasssss! (which played in the Toronto filmfest last September as How To Get The Man's Foot Outta Your Ass) is a lot more polished than Sweet Sweetback. Mario had more money to play with than his father, and film technique has evolved to make a slick look more accessible.
But the story on screen is just as raw. Making Sweet Sweetback was a political act of defiance by Melvin, who wanted to change how black Americans were depicted on screen. At the same time, he indulged himself in real-life sexual escapades and compromised his own son -- the real Mario -- by forcing him into an explicit love scene with a hooker character when the boy was only 13.
With no apologies, that creepy moment is re-created in Baadasssss! with Khleo Thomas -- un uncanny ringer for the real thing -- playing Mario, under Mario's direction. So the layers of guilt-shame-forgiveness-exhilaration are fascinating here, more so than in other scenes.
The production of Sweet Sweetback, with its multi-racial cast and crew, was also chaotic, sometimes illegal and definitely an adventure. Hookers, drug dealers, union thugs, young babes and all sorts of shady characters got involved.
All that is shown in Baadasssss! Making a revolutionary film is no easy feat. It was not a clean operation. It was far from romantic. The unvarnished truth is presented here -- making Baadasssss! one amazing movie.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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