Spike Lee
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus

Spike Lee strongly believed in this project: creating a remake of the experimental horror film “Ganja and Hess” (Bill Gunn, 1973). It is a definitely unconventional film and is often reductively presented as Spike Lee's first horror film. To bring it to life, in the absence of interested producers, he initiated a massive crowdfunding project. Shot on a tight budget in just 16 days, “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” essentially reprises the same content as the original film, although these elements are ultimately framed within the typical imagery of the director, who has enriched the work with strong symbolic and ideological content.

The story is about a wealthy African-American anthropologist, Dr. Hess Green, who lives in a luxurious villa on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where - passionate about archaeology - he boasts an important collection of very rare and unique artifacts. Coming into possession of a spear belonging to the Ashanti empire, whose origins are lost in time (according to biblical testimonies, the Ashanti are said to have originated from Ethiopia, from where they were later expelled, today they constitute the main ethnic group in Ghana) and once devoted to the practice of blood cult, after being himself mortally struck by the spear, he is reborn with the gift of immortality: the only condition is, of course, the necessary intake of blood, which will inevitably lead him to commit murders. When he falls in love, reciprocated, with the beautiful Ganja, he decides to gift her immortality by striking her mortally with the spear. The two thus appear destined for an ideal existence suspended in time and above any ethical and moral judgment, until Hess becomes redeemed and chooses to let himself die.

Difficult to interpret, the film is primarily a radical critique of contemporary American society, which Lee also defines as subject to the cult of blood. But clearly, it is not secondary that the protagonist is a rich and cynical African-American who leads a blissful existence essentially isolated from the rest of the world and that the origins of the spear are lost far back in time and at the heart of the African continent: Hess's final redemption has content greater than the renunciation of the individual's eternal life and appears almost as a symbolic representation of Marcus Garvey's ideas: the call to that “purity” of African blood and the proud claim of one's origins and recognition in the common cause of African Americans. Not to mention the ending where at sunset, two women stand on the shores of the sea looking at the horizon, as if searching in the future of the species for a new possibility to be pursued in the woman's guiding role as the custodian of the millennial history of humankind. Although it's a remake, this time (unlike “Old Boy”) Lee is absolutely convincing, and despite the budget, he manages to surround himself with capable actors (starting with leading actors Stephen Tyrone Williams and Zaraah Abrahams) and collaborators (Bruce Hornsby's contribution to the soundtrack is important), creating a beautiful and truly intellectually and speculatively stimulating film.