Superfly [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

This Region 2 DVD from Warner is a pan and scan full screen version. Why this was released in this format is a mystery as the U.S. Region 1 is Widescreen and therefore the far superior disc to buy. If you have an all region player, please ignore the UK R2 and go for the R1 release to obtain this film in the original widescreen format.

This movie is outrageous. Gordon Parks Jr.'s "Superfly" is interesting enough with its cliches of drug pushers, users, pimps, hos, and the dismal life in the ghetto. Good performances are given by Ron O'Neal as Priest, the drug pusher who wants to do the unthinkable -- get out of the business, and Julius Harris as Scatter, Priest's former connection to "The Man". After a little "help" from his friends Priest discovers he can only trust his woman, Georgia (Shelia Frazier). But, Priest has masterminded a way to take him and Georgia away from this life to another.

A director today, for example, could never get away with making a movie like this. The movie moves along like a series of music videos, stopping periodically to insert some dialogue and characters and situations, after which it moves back into another music video. Even that sex scene in the bathtub seemed to go on forever, panning up and down and up and down and up and down the naked bodies in the tub, presumably long enough for the song to play out before we can move on to the next scene.

From a technical standpoint, the film is an absolute disaster. There's a foot-chase early in the movie during which a wire of some sort falls directly in front of the camera lens not once, but twice, the audio is numerous scenes does not even remotely match the video (the never-ending bathtub scene, for example), and the acting is abysmal.

Throughout the film, the enjoyment comes from Curtis Mayfield's superb soundtrack. It has a way of elevating what might be just another b film to a cult classic. From "Little Child Runnin' Wild" in the opening sequence to Curtis Mayfield's live performance of "Pusherman" in Scatter's club to the end credits with the title track, this is simply one of the finest pieces of music ever written specifically for a film. The soundtrack album, which produced hit singles with "Freddie's Dead" and "Superfly", stands with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" as perhaps the two greatest soul albums of the 1970's.

This is a classic of it's type, and is clearly superior to it's contemporaries. What gives this film the edge is the clear social and political commentary that it provides for it's time. It is reflecting a variety of the competing interests that were present in the Black Community in the States at the time.

First, there is Priest's desire to leave behind his life of crime in drug dealing. He realises it is self-defeating and is reducing his own sense of self-worth. He yearns for a life of normality, where he can live a straightforward life of relative ease with his partner. In essence, he wants out of the struggle of the ghetto. A perfectly reasonable desire, and one shared, I would imagine by many of the people living in the ghettos and slums of the large industrialised cities of the Northern United States.

Second, the film reflects the pressure by society, or 'The Man', to slip into this lifestyle. In a key conversation with his partner (in crime), Priest is told that it makes no sense to struggle to leave the lifestyle he was in, since it represented the only opportunities that were available to the young black community at that time (perhaps still). Priest rejects this assessment. The film also underlines the sense of distrust and suspicion that the community held against it's law-makers (rightly as it turned out).

Third, the film demonstrates the increasing impotence of those truly revolutionary impulses within the community. In a conversation with a group of militants, who are chastising him for his lifestyle, Priest turns the tables accusing them of being unrealistic and away from the reality of the people in the ghetto. Essentially they were all talk and no action.

Overall, the film reflects these moral ambiguities and the complexities of life at the time. It is not a perfect film. It is clumsy structurally and the acting is not first rate. But it is honest, and thought provoking, if you wish it to be. This is a quality that is generally lacking in it's contemporaries. Shaft is slicker, looks better and has a bigger budget. Coffy and Foxy Brown have more accessible plots (in their simplicity) and more eye-candy. But Superfly asks the questions that the others veered away from. And that is to be commended in any film.

By the way, the soundtrack is first rate too.

Trivia Note: many of the supporting cast were real dealers and pimps from the streets where the film was shot.