`That `Love will overcome anything` is in Walt Disney films. I`ve always hated Disney films.”
This is how Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes), the African-American main character of Spike Lee`s latest film, ”Jungle Fever,” explains the problems in his relationship with Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra), an Italian-American from Bensonhurst. It`s a complicated situation, and ”Jungle Fever” tries to be much more than a simple love story. The film takes a careful look at the greater forces at work in a society that makes interracial love as out of place as an obscenity in ”Bambi.”
While Spike Lee grabs you from the start with the movie`s exciting visual style and catchy soundtrack (he even makes the opening credits entertaining), ”Jungle Fever” actually seems longer than most of the director`s other films. This is because he examines several lives that are affected by Flipper and Angie`s relationship (Flipper`s crack addict brother, Angie`s long-suffering boyfriend, and Flipper`s light-skinned wife, to name a few). This variety of viewpoints is both the movie`s strength and its weakness; while representing the complex way that these lives intertwine, the film also grows disjointed and longish.
Like ”Do the Right Thing,” ”Jungle Fever” refuses to leave the audience with a single, clear message. Spike Lee tries to present the problems of race and ignorance against the backdrop of a relationship that is doomed by these forces, and the result is anything but clear. Of course, this confusion is probably intentional, but I`d like to know what Lee`s opinions on these issues are. Does he believe that interracial relationships are possible? Or even desirable? In the end, it seems that the only answers to the problems presented by ”Jungle Fever” are simple kindness and understanding.
There`s a lot to be said for Disney movies, after all. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1
