Ganja & Hess

A little too heavy on the ganja, if you know what I mean...

Wow, I was absolutely blown away by this. I have no idea why this is labelled as blaxploitation, when it has more in common with Euro art house of the time than it does with Shaft. There is beautiful slow motion scenes paired with music that makes it seem like a dream. To go along with these great visual moments Gunn also include some political attacks against things such as black assimilation.

Vampire stuff is cool. But the weird entanglement it weaves with the Christian symbolism felt both beyond my ability to grasp, and too much of a blunt instrument. The overall tone of the film is something worth witnessing. It's like an interesting forest, but most of the trees are not very interesting.

Bill Gunn: I want to make an arthouse blaxploitation vampire movie!!!!! wherehalfofthescenessoundlikesomeoneforgottoturnanelectricrazoroff Producer: ok I didn’t quite catch that last part but this sounds like a winner

Instead of offering a formulaic black genre movie Gunn offers a poetic impressionistic contemplation on addiction, Christianity and black culture. It's a bit too incoherent for its own good. Luckily the movie kick into gear when the Ganja finally makes her appearance, thanks to MC who is such a force de nature. It also goes on too long on inconsequential tangents at times. So it's far from a perfect movie, but makes for an interesting and idiosyncratic experience nonetheless.

cool as a document of early 70s experimentalism among Black filmmakers, but towards the end I began to lose interest, perhaps because it was more concerned with its unique vision than its central relationship.

A distinctly black horror arthouse film unlike anything I've ever seen. Long contemplative nature shots and chaotic bloody sex scenes, set to equally chaotic mixes of funk and classical music. Whole scenes that are both filmed and written as one-sided monologues coming from one character, even when they're allegedly in a conversation or talking to others. Strange stuff, I'm stumped yet intrigued.

I appreciate the idea of it, but I really don't get it.

Very atmosphere, not very plot. Hazy and feverish, and somehow enhanced by it's poor preservation. I don't think it'd have nearly the same effect in crisp HD.

"If I were white, I would probably be called "fresh and different. If I were European, "Ganja and Hess" might be "that little film you must see." Because I am black, do not even deserve the pride that one American feels for another when he discovers that a fellow countryman's film has been selected as the only American film to be shown during "Critic's Week" at the Cannes Film Festival, May 1973. Not one white critic from any of the major newspapers even mentioned it."

71.500

it's all over the place and ends pretty senselessly, liked the style because of the time period but not worth watching