Wilfred Okiche
Blitz Bazawule was hesitant to take on his latest big-screen project. “The Color Purple is sacred ground. You don’t just show up to it with nothing to offer and nothing to contribute,” the Ghanaian director said on the American morning television show The View.
Bazawule (The Burial of Kojo, Beyoncé’s Black is King) was right to be hesitant. The Color Purple, a seminal novel by American black feminist Alice Walker, carries a lot of cultural weight.
The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982; a film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg was critically acclaimed and nominated for an Oscar; and a smash Broadway musical production that followed in 2005 won a Tony award.
The story of Celie and Nettie, growing up in the south at the turn of the 20th century, gave voice to the struggles of African-American women.
The sisters lose their mother, are done wrong by the men in their lives and get separated, perhaps forever. Celie is only able to survive these traumas by strength of will she gets from writing secret letters to God.
Bazawule’s version is a big screen adaptation of the stage production, complete with its vibrant musical numbers and devotion to bombast, but he definitely contributes a few updates of his own to The Color Purple lore.
In Bazawule’s version, the celebration of sisterhood is at the core and he reimagines a more cheerful worldview for Celie. The musical background translates well to the material as Bazawule and his collaborators survey the history of African-American music, drawing from negro spirituals, gospel, jazz and the blues.
Surprisingly, though, Bazawule is not as interested in the portions of the story set in Africa.
He also steers the film away from the formal strictures of the Spielberg film and opens up a sense of dramatic interactivity that is often present in Black films from Africa and its diaspora.
So don’t be surprised when you find yourself singing along or talking back to the characters on the screen.
This is that kind of movie.