Sinners

“I hated those men, but the words still bring me comfort. Those men lied to themselves and lied to us. They told stories of a God above and a Devil below. And lies of a dominion of man over beast and Earth**.“ As two things as I so concretely am (racked with Christian trauma and guilt, and an avid vampire enthusiast), never quite prepared for how much this scratches every itch. Found the tragic nature of it all the more overwhelming with each frame. Coogler doing things with a camera that I find to be spellbinding. Everything that can be said about I Lied to You has been said, and it’s the defining sequence of the film. But I wish I could articulate how swept up I become when we get to the vampires dance to Rocky Road to Dublin. For a moment, we see what Remmick sees and what is at the epicenter of his grief and his pain and his past. His eyes drifting up to the sky as if he’s looking to see ancestors that aren’t there always hits me like a freight train. From one preacher’s son to another, I think Sammy Moore is still a contender for the most interconnected to a character I have felt in some time. The blood soaked spectacle of the back half is thrilling— but none of it packs a punch for me quite like the moment where he decisively clings to that guitar and chooses to follow what he loves instead of falling back into a world that does not, and cannot, fill his heart in the way he needs it to be filled. Unspoken detail that I only now picked up on: he named his bar after her. Sinners: a movie obsessed with, and very good at telling, doomed love stories. We desperately need more big budget genre fare to be so embracing of sex and violence and thematic weight, to be more willing to stand straight and say it’s for adults. Vampirism in this film is portrayed as deeply lonely and like a punishment. The very final scene of this thing is dripping with bad memories and resignation to the fates our survivors have to look forward to. Not sure what more I can say this time around. Modern classic. Never loses its seductive, bloody power. “I think I’ve seen enough of this place.”