PSA: Movie spoilers sorry!
I recently watched Spike Lee's 2020 film "Da Five Bloods" and it was a long, emotional, violent, symbolic film filled with love and loss. Four Vietnam War veterans (the Bloods) reunite in Vietnam in modern day on a mission to find and honor their troop leader's remains. The movie consistently flashes back to moments of combat in the war, showing gruesome battle scenes and violence inflicted upon soldiers and civilians of Vietnam. One flashback scene shows the five soldiers uncovering a case filled with gold. They decide to bury it and come back when the war is over, believing their Black battalion deserves a reward after years of being put on the front lines and experiencing blatant racism and disrespect at home. One of the major themes of the movie is that the Black soldiers in Vietnam are dying and fighting for people's rights that they don't even have in America, and they hope to uplift and support Black communities at home. Spike Lee masterfully incorporates the challenges that Black soldiers faced in the context of a controversial war and the civil unrest of the Civil Rights Movement and connects it to today's political landscape.
The film begins with a clip of Muhammad Ali saying, "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother or some darker people or some poor hungry people in the mud for big, powerful America, and shoot them for what? They never called me n*****. They never lynched me." (0:10) In the very opening, Spike Lee lets the audience know that the film exposes American hypocrisy. The film then cuts to footage of Black soldiers fighting and dying in the Vietnam War, a Malcolm X speech, the Kent State Massacre, a clip of an anti-war Angela Davis speech, and the violence and destruction happening in villages throughout Vietnam. These clips juxtapose the brutal violence in both America and Vietnam during the 1960's and 1970's. These jarring images and powerful speeches made me think of Spike Lee's opening in his adaptation of the Autobiography of Malcolm X. The flashing images of Rodney King being mercilessly beaten by the police and the burning American flag highlights the continued racial discrimination and lack of equality in this country. In addition to these montages that connect the film with reality, Spike Lee incorporates the symbol of Black power, or the fist. The five bloods constantly put their fists together for strength and unity with one another. The camera zooms in on the Black fist multiple times, an allusion to the rising Black power movement of the 1960's that emphasized solidarity and pride. This directly correlates to Malcolm X's autobiography, in which one of his main messages is to uplift and honor the Black race and achieve universal respect and power. This theme is visited at the end of the film, when one of the bloods gives his share of the gold to the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020. This scene has an emotional impact on the audience, especially after the protests and murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Amhaud Arbery etc. last summer. Black pride and American hypocrisy throughout the 1960's directly relates to what is happening today.
Lastly, at the end of the film one of the bloods, Otis, is shot and stares up at the sky. When he believes he's about to be killed, he yells out "Madness! Madness!" This instantly reminded me of Kurtz' death in Heart of Darkness, when he screams "The horror! The horror!" I think just like Kurtz, Otis came to realize the true destruction that comes from war, hate, and greed and the racially targeted violence that Black people continue to endure. Spike Lee's film forces Americans to understand the lasting consequences of systemic racism and confronts the public with the question of, when will this racial violence end?
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