Jungle Fever was a disappointing follow-up to what I consider Spike Lee's two finest films, the celebrated Do The Right Thing and the subtle, underrated Mo' Better Blues, and it turned Lee overnight from one of the most critically acclaimed and promising directors of his generation into the butt of everyone's "has-been" jokes. With Jungle Fever the hype was too big, the expectations too high, and the ideas too complex to make a solid movie. The highly stylized camera work with its vivid colors, the extroverted acting and the prototypical characters - all of which worked very well for the morality tale of Do The Right Thing - feel clumsy and distracting in Jungle Fever which is a much more realistic story at heart.
That doesn't mean Jungle Fever is a bad movie; Spike Lee has some very interesting things to say about racism in modern culture, and it makes for a very thought provoking and even eye-opening experience. Interestingly, while it's often mentioned as the ultimate 'interracial romance' film, this film doesn't really deal with romance; rather, it's about sex, about social norms and family relationships, and about two people who use each other to fulfill their rebellious fantasies and rise against society. Lee refuses to use clichés, or to turn it into a sappy 'love beats all' fairy tale.
The big problem is, Lee has so much to say, a lot of it is completely lost. The most obvious example is Samuel L. Johnson's character, which is supposed to say something about family and society, but because it fits so loosely into the rest of the film - and because Jackson's over-the-top acting makes it hard to take him seriously - it feels very forced and out of place. Jackson is just one of several excellent character actors - Frank Vincent, Anthony Quinn, Ossie Davis and others - who deliver performances so intense that it's hard to focus on any of them.
The only actors who show any kind of subtlety are the leads - Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra (also Spike Lee himself and the wonderful John Turturro, but their roles are quite small), and their story is the heart of the movie, as well as the only aspect of it to really challenge conventions and say something original. The problem is that once you peel everything else away, you're left with a very thin central story, that just can't hold a film together.
That doesn't mean Jungle Fever is a bad movie; Spike Lee has some very interesting things to say about racism in modern culture, and it makes for a very thought provoking and even eye-opening experience. Interestingly, while it's often mentioned as the ultimate 'interracial romance' film, this film doesn't really deal with romance; rather, it's about sex, about social norms and family relationships, and about two people who use each other to fulfill their rebellious fantasies and rise against society. Lee refuses to use clichés, or to turn it into a sappy 'love beats all' fairy tale.
The big problem is, Lee has so much to say, a lot of it is completely lost. The most obvious example is Samuel L. Johnson's character, which is supposed to say something about family and society, but because it fits so loosely into the rest of the film - and because Jackson's over-the-top acting makes it hard to take him seriously - it feels very forced and out of place. Jackson is just one of several excellent character actors - Frank Vincent, Anthony Quinn, Ossie Davis and others - who deliver performances so intense that it's hard to focus on any of them.
The only actors who show any kind of subtlety are the leads - Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra (also Spike Lee himself and the wonderful John Turturro, but their roles are quite small), and their story is the heart of the movie, as well as the only aspect of it to really challenge conventions and say something original. The problem is that once you peel everything else away, you're left with a very thin central story, that just can't hold a film together.