Passing Strange: The Movie Review
Posted by Erik Luers on 09.18.2009
"You know what's weird? When you wake up that morning and realize that your entire adult life was based on a decision made by a teenager. A stoned teenager."
Stew ... Narrator
Daniel Breaker ... Youth
De'Adre Aziza ... Edwina / Marianna / Sudabey
Eisa Davis ... Mother
Colman Domingo ... Mr.Franklin / Joop / Mr. Venus
Chad Goodridge ... Rev. Jones / Terry / Christophe / Hugo
Rebecca Naomi Jones ... Sherry / Renata / Desi
Spike Lee’s Passing Strange:The Movie is one of the best films of the year. It’s a rock and roll epic, a thesis, a piece of performance art, a record of a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical's final days, and a critique on what it means to simply be “real”. Some may accuse the film as being nothing more than a filmed stage play, but that would be a discredit to the cast, the lyricist, the musicians, and the director of this stage vehicle, Annie Dorsen. Spike Lee doesn’t sit back, point his camera and shoot; he uses his camera to observe. You see, Lee is an active participant throughout Passing Strange, and so too is the audience at the Belasco Theater (and the ones watching on a movie screen or at home on their television sets). The film is all about joining in and participating, and the supposed fourth wall is all the way at the back of the theater. Quite frequently we see audience members clapping, standing up, cheering, laughing, etc. You are meant to get involved, so please do.
I’ve often heard that the films that are the most specific and personal to a director are the ones that are the most universally appreciated. Rather than shut us out, the director is allowing us to see another side of himself, one that is very raw and painfully intimate. Passing Strange is at times so honest and distinct that we care for it all the more, and it touched me in numerous ways. For what it wants to be, it is perfect.
Filmed over the closing weekend of a criminally short Broadway run, Passing Strange was recorded by Lee and his cameramen in front of a live, paying audience. I had gone to see the show a week earlier, aware of Lee’s plans to have swooping cameras come down near the stage for his film version, and decided to avoid that. Sitting in the last row of the theater in the balcony (above the mezzanine and orchestra), I loved what I saw and found it to be energetic and inspiring. The lack of elegant costumes/outfits, the atypical, mostly bare Broadway set, the orchestra on stage participating with the actors, Stew (the show’s creator) speaking directly to the crowd, the pop/hard rock musical score, and everything else seemed new and alive to me.
It was remaining in the Broadway tradition of possessing a simple enough narrative (boy is unhappy in hometown, travels to foreign lands, realizes that what he truly needed he had all along —the story is a black Pippin), and believed in the power of theater and live performance. It felt different, however. This was a rock concert with drama.
So yes, while the plot is very simple, the ideas that it presents thankfully are not. Our main character, Youth, is dressed in a bright red t-shirt, and he is sick of living in a L.A. he’s been unable to fit into. Girls accuse him of not acting black enough, and his mother wants him to be accepted by the church and their choir. Youth, on the other hand, wants to feel the real, that ambiguous feeling and understanding of the truth. What is the truth? Who knows if it can be found, who knows if it even exists. Youth experiments with drugs, argues with his mother, creates a rock band aptly titled “The Scaryotypes”, and plans to escape to Amsterdam, that dream like place where the discovery of the real is not only appreciated but encouraged. He doesn’t want to be phony or trapped in a suburban landscape where people come to smile, settle, and grow senile. Amsterdam cafes may be a great place to find the real, or maybe not. If not, no worries, there’s hashish on the menu.
An interesting outfit choice for the character of Youth. His shirt is the same color as Stew’s (although the older man’s is buttoned up and covered somewhat by a suit jacket), and Youth wants to be a rock star like our narrator. Is this musical an autobiographical piece? At least in part. Stew’s partner, Heidi Rodewald, plays keyboard for the show, and she helped compose the music. There is no character of Heidi in the show, however. Youth’s journey ends when he returns home for a family funeral. What happens after that is anybody’s guess. Maybe he became Stew.
In perhaps the most moving portion of the show, after this family member in question dies, Youth regrets not being able to make it home from Berlin sooner to see the person alive one last time. Stew looks at Youth and slowly sings, “and you’ll never see her again,” as if to be therapeutic in putting the blame on himself. He is antagonizing the Youth character, which is in turn, himself. He then asks the deceased figure if everything is now allright. These moments seem to affect Stew, the actor, as much as it affects Youth, the character. These are very sad and, pardon the expression, real moments, for they show a passionate artist coming to grips with his own past. Maybe that’s why this show was created and put on its feet. If it were anymore real, it’d be fiction.
The film is universal, as everyone has felt ignored and left on the outside looking in at least once in their lives, and we’ve all gone through the early twenties stage of not knowing which path to take. I am experiencing this metaphorical fork in the road myself right now. Would that have something to do with my enjoyment and enthusiasm for this film and stage play? Of course. We all bring our unique, personal experiences to everything we encounter and Passing Strange admittedly hit me on a level it may not others. African-American audiences may identify with it on a different level, as race and black identity is an issue that is front and center here, but not overwhelmingly so. Everyone will get something out of it, I hope. The need to be understood — hell, the need to understand yourself — and content in your future are desires of us all. The film ends with Youth determined and strong hearted. Where will he go from here? Stew’s presence in the piece tells you; it’s a whole life unfolding in front of us.
So what does Lee bring to the table? Well, for starters, he establishes an intimate relationship between the performer and the viewer, having cameras located downstage (the actors frequently peer down into them) and on a fast moving dolly. The film has an energy to it, and that must in part be thanks to Lee and his hardworking editing team. They filmed two separate performances and combined them into the film we have today, and most of the camera transitions are seamless. Lee also puts small cameras in the band’s little boxes where they sit — they are on small platforms which ascend and descend the stage — capturing their reactions and backup singing effortlessly. This is a nice touch that's perhaps more important than it initially seems. I also enjoyed Lee’s use of 8MM film stock to capture the tripped out drug sequences and other moments of artistic zaniness.
While we never forget we’re watching a filmed version of a stage play, we aren’t really supposed to. Lee shows the audience often enough as if to say, “you’re as much a part of tonight as these performers are.” At intermission, we see the actors rush backstage, sweating and filled with excitement. They are people too, and they are sharing the same rush as the audience watching. It's contagious.
In the opening paragraph of his review, Roger Ebert stated that he could not single out one performance to heap praise upon. They are all terrific, I agree, and yet I will try to throw out some commendations. Colman Domingo is great in all three of his roles, and his Berlin character (“ideas are expendable, there’s a new one every week. Culture is cosmetic.”) is hilarious and frighteningly truthful, and Domingo plays it for all it's worth. Chad Goodridge is also very funny, especially in an early scene where his character, high as a kite, thinks ahead to when he’s thirty, married, and has kids that hate him. His freakout is so frantic that the live audience loudly applauds the sadly humorous monologue. The two younger women are given less to do, but they each have their poignant moments (De’Adre Aziza has the Amsterdam sequence, Rebecca Naomi Jones the Berlin sequence), and I must mention the amazingly talented Elisa Davis, an actress with a voice and stage presence like no other. Her character is sweet, caring, demanding, and by the very end, heartbreaking.
I won't describe the work of Stew, Daniel Breaker, and the band here, as I'm running out of positive ways to describe everyone's work. I could say "glorious", "brilliant", or "remarkable", and they'd all be true, but it almost feels like faint praise in comparison to what they accomplish. I sincerely hope you see this film, and then you'll be fortunate enough to see for yourself. The film hits on an emotional level, and how can you really describe that? I am not yet talented enough to do so, but I've tried, and so I'll just keep encouraging you to see it. Tell everyone you know that Passing Strange is the real. Just ask the pretzel man.
The 411: Passing Strange is an excellent film, so far one of the year’s best. It’s smart, funny, and expertly performed, staged, and filmed. The production is bursting with energy, and its performers are up to the challenge of providing Stew’s work with the power and raw talent it requires and deserves. Nothing is lost from the experience of seeing it live on stage. With more intimate closeups than a theater could ever allow, it is a different yet satisfying experience that is pleasurable all the same. These are great performers performing excellent material and attention must be paid.
