Black Snake Moan is destined to divide audiences. At first glance, it looks like an attempt to jump on Tarantino’s shabbily retro Grindhouse bandwagon – promo posters of a black man standing over a young, chained-up white girl suggest a classic exploitation flick – but behind the publicity stunt is an engaging oddity of a film.
Samuel L Jackson stars as a smouldering blues musician, recently (and unwillingly) divorced, who rescues a young, white-trash teenager (Christina Ricci) whose addiction to sex has made her a social leper. Deciding it’s his religious duty to cure her, he chains her to a radiator and refuses to let her leave until she can control herself. As set-ups go, it’s on the ridiculous side, but fortunately, the film isn’t above poking fun at itself, managing to keep its tongue in its cheek without slipping into self-parody.
The stars do a fantastic job with the often-controversial script; Jackson
is on motherfuckin’ angry form here, while Ricci’s mostly naked performance shows some real guts (and just about everything else). At times, the plot feels a little slight – the story of Ricci’s boyfriend (as played by an underwhelming Justin Timberlake) is particularly thin – but the film’s atmosphere is fantastic. The heat and pulse of Jackson’s blues club and the dusty humidity of Bible-belt America have a real physical presence, so much so that you can practically smell the sweat in Ricci’s hair.
The main problem in this film comes from its portrayal of sexuality. The message seems to be that female sexuality is something to be feared, controlled and crushed, while the male sex drive – mostly expressed here in the form of dirty, throbbing blues music – is shown as something glorious and liberating. It’s a dubious double standard that threatens to lower the film to pure exploitation, which is a shame, because behind all the nudity and sadomasochism this is an uplifting tale of the quest for redemption, of leaving behind a painful past and starting again with hope.
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