Mudbound (2017)

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Mudbound Movie Poster

Mudbound is a American historical drama movie who released on November 17, 2017 in United Stated and directed by Dee Rees.The movie is based upon the novel of the same name by author Hillary Jordan who tells the story of two Mississippi families, a black family and a white family. They are both farmers, who struggle with life after the Second World War. The storyline is motivated by problems such as PTSD, racism, and economic concerns, giving the film a tremendously realistic and sincere feeling.

It starring :

Mudbound also received 19 major nominations in 2018 including Best Actress in a supporting role by Mary J. Blige, Best Adapted screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees and win Best Cinematographer by Rachel Morrison in 2018 New York Film Critics Circle.[1]

Plot

The McAllans are a bourgeois farming family. Henry McAllan was raised on a farm sold off by his family in his teens, has a degree in engineering and works in Memphis, where he meets his wife, Laura, in 1939. She is not particularly attracted to him, but marries him anyway. The couple have two daughters. When the war starts, Jamie (Henry's brother) becomes a fighter pilot and, while he’s away, Henry decides to purchase land in Mississippi and live with the another family member called Pappy (Henry and Jamie's father) A tough, cruel, blatantly and violently racist man who is somewhere between idle and retired and loves blusteringly attacking in his midst everyone, family or friend, but reserves special disdain towards black people and takes special pleasure in impunity in insulting them in their face.

Jamie with Jackson Family

The dramatic incidents on the farm involve the tensions and connections between the McAllans and the Jacksons, a black family. In the Mississippi delta, Hap Jackson is a tenant farmer working land that his ancestors have worked as slaves for decades, in previous years. He yearns to own the property he's working on, who was forced at gunpoint to hand it over to a white man. When the mule they own dies, double accidents strike the Jacksons and Hap breaks his leg. This contributes to the need for the family to rent a mule from the McAllans and decreases their land earnings. The accident means that Florence is unable to work for Laura anymore.The central relationship in the film is the postwar friendship of two men

The central relationship in the film is the postwar friendship of two men Jamie and Ronsel Jackson, the eldest son of Florence and Hap, who return when war ends. Ronsel is pleased to see his family, but is outraged to be regarded in the segregated life of Mississippi as a second-class citizen and Jamie has been suffering from PTSD. While riding together in the McAllans' truck Ronsei shows Jamie about his Wife and his son in Germany. At home, Pappy berates Jamie for allowing a black man to ride in the front of the truck with him.

Ronsel discovers when he enters his home that he left the picture in the truck. He was picked up later that night by members of the Ku Klux Klan and beaten. Jamie is taken to the remote farm site where Ronsel is being detained and granted a "trial" by the KKK to determine whether to lynch him. While Jamie tries to defend Ronsel, the other men eventually overpower him and force him to choose the punishment for Ronsel: to take his eyes, tongue, or testicles. Jamie is forced to witness the tongue mutilation of Ronsel. Ronsel is strung up naked by his own relatives and discovered. As revenge for Ronsel's treatment, Jamie kills his father at night.

When Henry returns home, Laura says that his father died peacefully in his sleep. Henry and Jamie dig a grave to bury their father on the farm, in the mud. They learn the spot is a former slave's grave. Much later the Jacksons find happiness on a new farm. Ronsel, now mute, returns to Germany, where he is united with his girlfriend and son.

Pros

Jason Mitchell and Garrett Hedlund in the Mudbound Movie

Johnny Brayson on Bustle said that this movie feels so real and could change how you see history "Mudbound may technically be a fictional story, but it was shaped by accounts of people who had experienced similar events and lifestyles firsthand, which explains why it feels so real."[2] His Grandmother also said to him "will never be a citizen in this country.' And what she meant by that was that this country will never see her as a first class American citizen. She’d always be a problem, or a reminder. I wanted to explore how these black soldiers are received [abroad] first as Americans then as black men. But here, they’re received only as black men, and I don’t know if they're ever seen as American." Thats why he feels this movie is so real, because at that time his Grandmother used to feel the same way.

Peter Travers on Rolling Stone also said that this movie reflects the Trump era without he being a part of it, "A fiercely intimate epic about poverty, racism, violence and a divided America, Mudbound scorchingly reflects the Trump era without being a part of it."[3]

And based on EW by Chris Nashawaty he said that telling story about race is never easy, but this movie did such a wonderful job "Telling stories about race is never easy. There’s so much baggage, so many charged emotions, it’s so easy to make a wrong step. But Mudbound is never preachy, reductive, or undercut by its own good intentions. Just the opposite. It’s a deeply felt American tale told with heart and humanity".[4]

Reference