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Miracle at St. Anna


The Miracle of St. Anna (Spike Lee, 2008)




I need to rewatch this film because my first viewing was mostly a frustrating experience. The movie probably tells an important story and may have its heart in the right place, but it's so crammed with incident and seemingly-inconsequential subplots, as well as being told in a convoluted manner, that it's difficult for me to even tell you what it's supposed to be about. Although the flick starts with somebody going postal in 1983 New York City, most of it is a flashback about four Black American soldiers behind enemy lines in WWII Tuscany, Italy. The four soldiers attempt to help out the local partisans while also trying to capture a German soldier. Since this is a Spike Lee Joint, he casts a sexy woman just so he can get her to take her clothes off. Then, there's the "miracle" which I'm not going to even try to discuss. The movie looks good and has some elements of action and suspense, but I cannot understand why it's 160 minutes long unless Spike really thought he was going to get some Oscars for this. Additionally, for all those people who hate "bad accents" and would prefer everyone to speak their own language, this film may be the antedote to that idea. There are scenes upon scenes where Americans speak English, the Italians speak Italian (with subtitles) and the Germans speak German (in subtitles). After a short while, it's enough to give you a headache because most of the dialogue is expository or banal. Once again, I think Spike must have had delusions of grandeur because it really kills the film for everybody trying to understand everybody else when they all have to be translated back and forth. Normally, I prefer subtitles, especially if it's a film made outside of the U.S., but this film just shows how much better Clint Eastwood handled the subtitles in Letters from Iwo Jima. As I said up front, I'll try to rewatch it, but it was a long slog the first time
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