The first time I saw Sinners, I was dazzled and numbed by its virtuosity, the bold and brazen but respectful ways it borrows from other disparate films — most notably The Color Purple and From Dusk Til Dawn, two movies rarely mentioned together — but applies a sensibility so unexpected that it becomes something astonishing.
Right off the bat, it was clear Sinners was the kind of film people will still be watching and talking about and studying decades from now. It left me feeling a way I almost never feel at the movies: That I had seen something new.
I saw Sinners again in 70-millimeter IMAX. Writer-director Ryan Coogler, one of the few people Hollywood is wise to let do anything he wants from now on, has spoken extensively about shooting in 15-perforation IMAX. The experience didn't disappoint — except that the IMAX moments were so visually stunning, so impressively immersive, that even though the rest of the film didn't suffer, the IMAX scenes left me craving more of them. I was even more viscerally dazzled than the first time.
Then, I saw it again, projected digitally in a more-or-less standard format, and while the cinematic experience might not have been overpowering, the story came even more into focus.
Then I saw it one more time projected in 70-millimeter film (see above), a format so visually rich and tactile that it made me regret not having appreciated the nature of film growing up as a movie fan.
Each of the experiences has been unique and memorable, but at the core, of course, is Ryan Coogler's movie, and with every viewing Sinners becomes deeper and more rewarding. One of the many beauties of Sinners — which I have no hesitation saying is the best film of the year, because it's the best film I've seen this decade — is that it works so well as a casual moviegoing experience. The movie begins as an exquisitely crafted period drama (following a scene that jolts with a taste of the horrors to come), featuring characters that can't help but hold your attention.
Then, almost exactly midway through, Sinners becomes something else: a movie about vampires. It's not entirely fair to call it a horror film, though it becomes both nerve-wracking and grotesquely violent. Then again, life for its central characters was nerve-wracking and grotesquely violent — harsh truths offset by the joyful noise of blues music.
Still, none of that explains why Sinners is a movie I've gone back over and over to see. I don't watch a lot of horror films intentionally, and I generally eschew violence. Why would a violent movie about vampires leave me mesmerized?
The answer, I think, comes in the most unexpected place: A mid-credits scene. These scenes, popularized by Marvel movies, are usually gimmicky and exist as little comedic flourishes or, worse, as advance trailers for upcoming films. The decision to place the mid-credits scene in Sinners is clearly a deliberate one, but one of the only mistakes I think Coogler has made with this incredible film. The problem is that every single time I've seen Sinners, at least a third of the audience has walked out of the cinema when the scene begins.
And the scene is a stunner. In it, an older version of Sammie, the blues musician played by Miles Caton, remembers the significance of the night that forms the core of the movie, a night in which an entire community falls prey to a pack of vampires. Sammie is one of the only survivors. Sinners, it turns out, has really been his story.
Though twins Smoke and Stack, both played by a stunning Michael B. Jordan, are ostensibly the main characters, it turns out every bit of Sinners revolves around Sammie, from the spoken prologue to all three of the film's final shots. He's key to the first and last shots in the main narrative, to the final shot of the mid-credits scene and, most intriguingly, to the short "stinger" that ends the film — a brief scene of Sammie playing the guitar by himself that holds tantalizing possible meanings.
Every element of Sinners seems to exist at multiple levels simultaneously. The main narrative can be understood upon first viewing, but takes on a different meaning entirely once you've seen that mid-credits scene — the movie is an elegy, a remembrance and appreciation of a moment in time that can never happen again. It also sets up the important theme of community that runs throughout the film, and of the blues music that is vital to the community. There's also an ominous moment that turns out to be hugely important involving the Ku Klux Klan.
Later, as the film introduces its primary antagonist, the vampire leader Remmick (played with charm, depth and even pathos by Jack O'Connell), the mood turns to bloodletting and vampirism. Yet all of that careful character work and scene setting is not merely a setup — it is vital to understanding what Remmick wants and needs, what he's preying on. Yet, if the meaning eludes you, Sinners still works perfectly. This is a movie that never insists on being "understood," but provides enormous depth to those who want to look beneath the surface.
Yes, the White, Irish Remmick is out to steal from Black culture. But the movie goes far, far further than that, and Coogler takes pains to present Remmick almost as a victim of circumstance as much as a demanding predator. Community is as important to Remmick as it is to the residents of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and as the sun sets and Remmick rises to power, Coogler makes it devastatingly clear how appealing and seductive the community he depicts is — not just to Remmick but to us; Clarksdale may be poor, but it's uncommonly idyllic.
Then there are the twins themselves — Smoke and Stack, each one complimenting each other. They can't exist on their own, they are as much a "hive mind" as the vampires themselves. They've just returned from Chicago, where they have proven to be violent predators and terrors; perhaps they really did bring the devil to Clarksdale, or they're just getting what they deserve. But no one is easily defined in Sinners, as the title suggests, everyone has some blame. It's just that Coogler makes them so damned appealing.
Added to all of this is Sammie, whose presence is explained by the mysterious prologue, but whose role in the story gets deeper with every viewing, as does that KKK subplot. Both factor into the ending in ways that seem merely to serve the plot at first —but with every viewing, it becomes clear that both elements are far more integral to the story than they may have seemed. Remmick offers warnings about both — and though Sammie is far from a malevolent force, that truly final shot of the film, the one that plays after the credits roll, indicates that there is the slightest possibility Sammie knows more, or serves an even deeper function, than he seems.
I'll finish with the dime-store film-school analysis now, and go back to the way the movie, despite its violent nature and its gruesome action sequences, plays so beautifully on the emotions. Like a piece of blues music, it never denies its baser instincts, but it also knows how to roll them into something that captures the heart.
It's that mid-credits scene that is the real key to everything I've grown to love about Sinners. It's both the first scene Coogler shot, and the one he says is the key to understanding the movie. He's right. Sinners can be enjoyed without it, but not truly appreciated. Sinners, for all its horror-movie trappings, turns out to be an exquisite, profound meditation on loss, on regret, and on the all-too-human failure not to see and understand the beauty that is right in front of our eyes until it's far too late.
That final scene, in which blues legend Buddy Guy takes on the role of Sammie for a few brief minutes, takes an already great movie and raises it to dizzying heights. It moves Sinners from the ranks of the simply great into the realm of the all-time classics.
If you haven't seen it, do. And if you've already seen it, see it again. And, dare I suggest, again.
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