Black Snake Moan

Purg and I caught Black Snake Moan a few weekends ago. This is the story of Lazarus (a man who's wife has left him for his younger brother), Rae (a young girl who was abused as a child and now is literally an nymphomaniac) and ??? (Rae's boyfriend who is eventually kicked out of boot camp for an anxiety disorder). If you haven't seen the poster or TV spots, then you don't know about one of the most interesting oddities of this film. Lazarus takes it upon himself to redeem Rae from her wicked and sad state, but his methods are not taken from any pastoral care and counseling class. No, Lazarus chains Rae to his radiator to keep her from running off on him and avoiding the "desert" she must travel in order to be transformed.

I really appreciated that Black Snake didn't fall into a number of tired cliches about judgmental clergy or protagonist-redeemers who are misunderstood. Ben Witherington gives us some very good thoughts on the film here.

Just a word of warning, the film is pretty raw and gritty and earns it's R rating. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in high school or younger.

Labels: Film, Theology