1998 Directed by Hype Williams
Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?
DMX Nas Hassan Johnson Taral Hicks Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins Oliver "Power" Grant Louie Rankin Stanley Drayton James Parris Method Man Kurt Loder Ben Chavis Tyrin Turner Jay Black John 'B.J.' Bryant Prince 'Blunt' Graham Wondosas 'Kilo' Martin Shaun Morrison Frank Vincent Eric Keith McNeil Xavier Simmons LaVita Raynor Monica Michaels Jen Gatien AZ David Edwards Jeffrey H. Kaufman Brant Spencer Adam Vignola Show All…
White Lines, White Lines - Im Teufelskreis des Verbrechens, Könnyű pénz, 벨리, Barra Pesada, Живот, 肚肚
USAR
Germany
Germany
USA
"Born by myself, die by myself."
Remixes a decade of American crime cinema (including Ferrara, De Palma and Bill Duke) with a form of experimental hip-hop expressionism. A blaxploitation purification story told in idiosyncratic compositions drenched in passionate colors and sudden, incomprehensible explosions of violence. Doesn't care about narrative coherency as much as it cares about capturing the intense feelings of its dark, oppressive environment; an entire network of pressure, isolation, and brutality that only ever gives you the illusion of individual choice/power. DMX plays it exactly right, all self-assured authority until it's hollowed out and crushed and offered a chance to rebuild. Don't know what I was expecting when I turned this on but I did not expect to be thinking about Takeshi Kitano or Seijun Suzuki. It's a crime that Hype Williams didn't get to develop this style further and that DMX didn't get to act in more movies than he did. RIP to a king.
Nas and DMX read self-improvement books as the millennium approaches.
I think they ran out of money halfway through this movie because of all the insane lighting. Totally worth it. Such a delirious, disaster of a masterpiece. Reminds me a lot of Southland Tales in its apocalyptic vision of the new American millennium and how its auteur director was perhaps driven mad by it, or at the very least never got another bite of the apple. Hype Williams canvas of dreamy nighttime color and beautifully appointed interiors belies the claustrophobic oppression and squalor of the world of exploitation he portrays. The epitome of late 90s aesthetic vibes all pointing to a new century of youth culture dominated by drugs, sex,…
Had tickets to see this in 35mm back in the fall but couldn't make it for reasons I completely forget. Having finally seen it I can now say I definitely wouldn't have forgotten about that night if I ended up going. I've never seen lights used like this before, felt like I was discovering a whole new way of making movies.
Anyone who says the only noteworthy part of this film are the first 10 minutes (don't get me wrong, great opening) hasn’t seen the last 10 minutes.
“Black literature is taught as sociology, as
tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.”
- Toni Morrison
Superb blaxploitation with the additional jolt of having metabolized 20 years of crime films and rap videos, constantly placing you as a secret observer in a culture simultaneously of everyday detail and almost apocalyptic weirdness. This thing will zip from an empty project concrete basketball court on a freezing morning to a plantation-like mansion under assault by an acrobatic female assassin that looks like Tina Turner in THUNDERDOME crossed with a luchador. Visually this is literally slathered in blackness, teasing information out of ultra-dark environments lit by infrared or bursts of gunfire. Strange and powerful.
Saw this on 35mm for the first time tonight and it was even more of a thunderclap sensory explosion than I’d expected. Gorgeous, proud, brilliantly lit and staged, sometimes incoherent, funny, tragic, genuinely apocalyptic and end-of-the-millennium poetic. As bad as Nas is, DMX is that good. And the soundtrack is unusually smart—intermingling boom bap with dancehall, Southern rap with jazz and cleverly leaning on a capella renditions of R&B songs for a wildly operatic effect during Hype Williams’ orgy-of-light slow motion set pieces. Who wants to raise some money for Hype’s long-awaited follow up?
After a Kubrick-on-speed diamond heist at a neon-blacklit strip club, Nas walks into DMX's crib, turns on the plasma TV and confusedly watches GUMMO as DMX angrily plays billiards by himself, frustrated that his cohort isn't shutting up and appreciating the movie.
These are the first 7 minutes of BELLY.
95
Total masterpiece. All there is to it. Hype Williams, please make another film, for our sake.
My pick for the week over at AnotherLook with Will and Corey: anchor.fm/willandcorey/episodes/Belly-e1vsekd
Had a little trouble following the plot at first, then realized it's more about vibe.
Looking at reviews of Belly from the time of its release irritates me to no end - constant talk over the films supposed "style over substance," complaints about a thin plot (bizarre even moreso in retrospect, because it's actually rather intricate), & I suppose I could at least partially forgive the former given that this movie completely defined the look of hip-hop in the 2000s - something of course spearheaded by Hype Williams himself and still imitated to this day. Of course, the initial response is almost certainly related to the relentless pile-on critics would lump on young, ambitious and even innovative black directors in the 1990s (see also: nearly every film John Singleton made after Boyz N The Hood) but…
