‘Purple color’
Manager: Blitz Bazawule
Distribution: Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo
Premiere: February 9, 2024
Punctuation: ★★★
Alice Walker’s most famous novel first served as the basis for a well-intentioned melodrama directed by Steven Spielberg, then a theater production on Broadway, and now returns to the big screen as a musical film that softens the darkest aspects of history. What is actually a story of rape, incest and constant violence in a celebration of faith, forgiveness and reconciliation through pure choreographed blues, gospel and soul melodies.
This story, let’s remember, An African American woman in the first half of the 20th century who, thanks to the solidarity of other women, managed to survive the constant harassment of many men and the System as a whole; in other words, the history of racism, machismo, and slavery in the United States are ideal subjects for fleshing out song and dance numbers. Ironies aside, adding musical interludes to such a bleak story makes sense in that it offers the audience a respite, even if it leads to a series of abrupt tonal shifts and a certain senselessness of the daily horrors endured by the protagonist. The secret to enjoying the film is to pay less attention to the plot than to how it is evoked in the songs, or if you prefer, to understand it first and foremost as a magnificent visual album in the style of ‘Purple Rain’. (1984) or ‘Black is King’ (2020).