Da 5 Bloods review, Culture Whisper
In these troubling times – rife with disease and racism – the necessity to share, educate and contribute feels stronger than ever. Spike Lee has been making movies in that vein since the 80s.
His new Vietnam War movie Da 5 Bloods, following a band of African-American veterans hunting for gold, is no different – opening with a harsh history lesson. Lee clips together 4:3 TV footage of Muhammad Ali, Dr King, Malcolm X, Angela Davis: all interlaced with the murders and massacres and shootings and suicides captured in the fraught time of the Vietnam War.
It’s evocative enough to make you weep, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the global protests that have grown from it. How many other prominent filmmakers would dare to open with such piercing pictures? This real footage soon splinters into fiction as you see a photo of the five eponymous ‘Bloods’, raising their fists in the jungle. The screen expands to 16:9 and time moves forward to present-day Saigon.
