Some movies attempt — and succeed — in mixing questionable content into their entertainment motifs; content which can be offensive, ultra-violent, racist or upsetting in other ways.  It is almost always done for effect, rather than purely for shock value, yet the technique brings into question not only the filmmakers’ intent, but whether seeing certain images or hearing certain words overwhelms and ruins the intended artistic statement.  Quentin Tarantino’s movies often push boundaries in this way, and I’m not a big fan of his because of it.  And Spike Lee is another filmmaker whose films tend to offend while they are telling his stories.

Spike Lee’s film, in this case, is based on a true story (!).  In the 1970s a young black Colorado Springs detective, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel), answers a newspaper ad for the Ku Klux Klan, pretending on the phone to be white.  Because he uses his real name, he enlists the aid of detective Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to impersonate him and infiltrate the KKK.  The Colorado Springs police reluctantly support the investigation, especially when it leads to a possible bombing scare.  Meanwhile, Stallworth is romancing a black activist (Laura Harrier) and trying to find a comfortable position in the police force, where he is not accepted as an equal by many of the white officers.

There is a lot to digest in this fact-based movie, and it is often quite powerfully presented by Spike Lee.  It is also quite comedic, often brimming in irony.  I would venture to say that it is his most accomplished film in many years.  That said, I must also confess that I did not like the film much at all.  I was uncomfortable with all the casual racism, which permeates the story and is impossible to ignore.  Even though it seems to be a factual re-enactment of the recent past, it seems like a different world, one which makes me cringe.  I know people had similar reactions to 12 Years a Slave, another recent film which is blatantly racist, but that brilliant film struck me more as an historical document.  This one takes place so recently, during my lifetime, that I cannot see it in the same way.  And there is so much humor, much of it surrounding the redneck racists, that its dramatic impact is softened.

No doubt, BlacKkKlansman is a well made film.  Recent episodes in our country indicate that not much has changed in fifty years.  In fact, the film ends with footage from the Charlottesville riots last year, which is more powerful than anything Lee dramatizes.  It is a provocative film that openly confronts ongoing racism by demonstrating how real people struggled with it in the 1970s and, with that epilogue, how we are still struggling with it today.  Lee tries to make his filmic lecture as entertaining as possible, too. He juxtaposes the loony sight of KKK members gleefully watching and cheering Birth of a Nation with activists quietly listening to Jerome Turner (Harry Belafonte) describe in lurid detail white people hanging blacks during his childhood.  Then there is Topher Grace as David Duke.  It’s a weird movie, one which I appreciate but was never comfortable watching.  Perhaps that was the point.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  7 November 2018.