Once again Spike Lee has succeeded in evoking yet another slice of life in New York in his inimitable style this time bringing us back to Brooklyn when a young man and his I-Pod 2 from Atlanta get dropped off to spend the summer with his estranged grandfather Bishop Enoch Rouse, at the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn. “Flik Royale” (newcomer Jules Brown) does not get the vacation he expects from his preacher grandfather portrayed brilliantly by Clarke Peters ( HBO’s The Wire, and Treme )in this poignant coming of age story of faith, love, shame, scandal, and redemption. Where suburbs meets projects, vegan meets fried chicken, I-Pad 2 meets Holy Bible, and boy meets girl.
With his newfound friend from the ”Lil Piece of Heaven Church,” Chazz Morningstar (Tony Lysaith) they explore the parameters of his new environment through the lens of Flik’s I-Pod video camera making a documentary of his summer culminating in a series of events which draw him closer to faith, family and Chazz. Thomas Jefferson Byrd (Get on the Bus, Boycott, Bamboozled) puts in a hilarious performance as Chazz’z embarrassing uncle, Deacon Zee, the church’s custodian whose got jokes and stock tips, and he stays tipsy.
One gets the feeling of being transported to time and place in all of Lee’s best works. Again, he does not fail to make us feel the “closeness” of the air in a church with a moldy ceiling, the heat of a NY summer without AC. We smell the stench of the choking black smoke causing asthma and taking the lives of innocent children in the night. The very moving musical score is primarily gospel, the choice of Sunday hymns revealing the down home country roots of Bishop Rouse’s southern past in sharp contrast to a more contemporary or urban NY gospel style.
The Bishop appreciates that his view of the world from his window still allows him to appreciate things in nature created by God, in the midst of decaying buildings along a polluted waterfront blackened by smoke. He wants nothing more than to bring his grandson to Jesus, to bring him the knowledge of the Word, ironically in the end it is the grandson and a reality check which brings him closer to God . With a cast of church women played with such passion and warmth, again one can feel the genuine ties that bind in this small struggling congregation. Some of Spike Lee’s best works involve authentic stories of real people from a planet called Brooklyn, this is one ranks right along with Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Crooklyn and Summer of Sam.
By: Ariana D’Oyen
