Crips And Bloods: Made In America – DVD Review

by Marc Eastman on May 19, 2009 · 2 comments

At a certain point in Stacy Peralta‘s latest effort, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, one of our interview subjects comments (roughly) that one of the chief devices of oppression is to turn the oppressed into the tools of their own oppression. It was at this point, historically-moving documentary aside, that the film became interesting for me. Sure, the whole thing is a worthy effort just based on the account of a strange and tragic set of circumstances, but I mean interesting in the sense of a well-crafted, meaningful film. The story itself, starting from the 50s (and before to a degree) and following the events that made south L.A. what it is today, was going to be interesting on some level regardless of the filmcraft. But, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a gripping and powerful film.

The film relates the story of a section of geography and a massive socio-cultural experiment more than anything else, and despite knowing the title is “Crips and Bloods,” that’s probably a rather surprising thing to say. The red and blue highlights on the map are the result of a strange, sad, and frightening course of oppression, abuse, and disenfranchisement. The decades-long transition from lower-income negroes who couldn’t go across a street into the wrong neighborhood without being harassed by police, to lower-income African-Americans who can’t cross a street into the wrong neighborhood for fear of being shot dead on sight by other African-Americans is truly mind-bending. It is all the more dumbfounding, and frankly remarkable, when you see the entire progression laid out before you.

The story is given to us largely by way of those who lived through various eras of the downward spiral. From those who were at the Watts riots, to those who were very recently involved (even currently) in the gangs. With photo and video footage, coupled with first hand accounts of events, we walk through the days when the first L.A. “gang” started, though they didn’t call themselves a gang then. Those youths, just trying to do something to fit in somewhere, wouldn’t have looked very out of place in an episode of Happy Days. They may have beat each other fairly regularly, but they did it by appointment, and it was pretty civil and above-board.

The evolution resulting in generation after generation being born on the frontlines of a very literal war is something not only predictable, as referenced in the quote above, but something practically planned. It’s not only the result we have, it’s the one that’s nearly unavoidable.

Stacy Peralta, of Dogtown and Z-Boyz and Lords of Dogtown fame, once again masters the art of letting people tell their own stories. It is perhaps a more interesting and genuine plus here, because if you were at Watts, no one is telling that story better than you. The overall product is, as I said, somewhat easy in its power, or at least in its historic significance, but this is a film that could have gone wrong in a million ways and didn’t. Sometimes that’s the measure of great direction.

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The real brilliance of Crips and Bloods: Made in America is that it doesn’t live for its agenda, or even seem particularly to have one. It’s objective (though its subjects are not) not only to a surprising degree, but in the face of a subject which might make a lack of objectivity pretty forgivable. It’s wonderfully human, and moreover humane while it is riveting, but it doesn’t really ‘tell’. It’s a subject here and now, and told by the participants, but the film itself builds from a true documentarian’s detached wonder.

It is a style and filmmaking perspective that might as easily have been about Roman slaves, and it would still have made you care, but because it isn’t, it will crush you.

Rating:

Are You Screening?

Crips & Bloods: Made in America (pastemagazine.com)

About Marc Eastman

Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.

Tagged as: crips and bloods made in america, Documentary, Movie Review, Movies, South Los Angeles, Stacy Peralta