"Black Snake Moan"

I think, with "Black Snake Moan," Brewer's secret is finally out of the bag: For all that he wants to rattle and disarm us, he's really a humanist in wolf's clothing. His 2005 "Hustle & Flow" gave us Terrence Howard as the pimp DJay, the kind of guy who throws one of his hookers out on the street because she's become a nuisance to him -- and also boots the woman's infant son out with her, plopping the child's walker on the stoop before slamming the door.

The moment is horrifying, but it's also a challenge: Can we -- or should we -- feel any sympathy for this guy? What does it say about us if we do? I remember reading my colleagues' reviews of "Hustle & Flow," after I'd written my own, and being baffled by many of them. Some had decided the picture was misogynist because it asks us to feel something for a guy who exploits women, as if compassion were the same thing as approval, a response I could understand on some level even if I didn't share it. But I was more puzzled by the critics -- most of them men -- who seemed to be airing their thinly disguised fears that DJay was going to move into their comfortable neighborhoods and prey on their daughters. They seemed more deeply invested in protecting the notion of the "threatening black male" than in even daring to look under its hood.

Brewer, and Howard, took a risk in asking us to connect with a guy we couldn't respect, trust or even really like. "Black Snake Moan," its potent imagery notwithstanding, is in some ways a much less sensationalistic picture. In both movies, Brewer shows a gift for building mood and atmosphere: "Hustle & Flow" -- set, and filmed, in Memphis -- is a summer-in-the-city movie in which the heat hangs so heavily in the air you can practically see it. "Black Snake Moan" takes place in the country, a world of bean fields and dirt roads and little towns where you can stop in and buy whatever you might need -- a bucket or a shovel, a new dress or a shirt that's nicer than your everyday clothes, a cup of coffee if you're looking for a pick-me-up. Beautifully shot by Amelia Vincent (who was also the director of photography on "Hustle & Flow," as well as "Eve's Bayou" and "The Caveman's Valentine"), the picture has the soft glow of a Sunday-school picture book.

Which is not to say it doesn't have its moments of horror, as well as some touches of sick humor. When we first see Ricci chained to that radiator -- and catch a glimpse of the zealous, though in no way sexual, gleam in Jackson's eyes -- we're getting bits of Southern biblical obsessiveness mingled with gothic horror. Rae also has a bodaciously foul mouth: "Kiss my rebel cooch!" she growls at a guy who's bugging her.

But Rae's vulnerability is never in question: Her near-nekkidness is obviously an exploitation turn-on, but it also makes you want to wrap a blanket around her (which is exactly what Lazarus promptly does). It's difficult to look at Ricci, in her early scenes, because Rae's face is so badly bruised. But if the makeup were less realistic, the seriousness of Rae's plight wouldn't hit so hard. Sure, Lazarus is patronizing her, but it's also clear she might have died without him. Since she's incapable of steering on her own, it's his job to take the wheel for a spell.

Brewer takes pleasure -- sometimes it's impish pleasure -- in giving us gorgeous images that are also slightly jarring, like the sight of Lazarus showing the chained-up Rae (this is a pretty long chain) around his bean field, proud of the work he's put into it. In another scene, he prepares a meal for her, urging her to enjoy her food instead of just scarfing it down: He tells her he put "a lot of backache" into growing those greens and a lot of love into cooking them. "You slow down and just enjoy some of it."

Lazarus' interest in Rae is in no way lascivious. In her semi-conscious state, shortly after he's rescued her, she plants an aggressive, assertive kiss on his lips, and he recoils: The dismay and anguish on Jackson's face shows us very clearly that he's both shocked by her and afraid for her -- she's foreign to him, both sexually and morally, a sharp twist on the cultural stereotype of the black man as sexual predator and conqueror. Ricci and Jackson both give lovely performances, perfectly in tune with the picture's gradual shifting from metaphorical darkness into light. She's a google-eyed angel on a highway to hell; he's a hardy fellow not yet stooped by age, but you can see it coming: Together, their frailties blend into a kind of strength. And Timberlake (the only actor worth watching in the dreadful "Alpha Dog") plays a guy who has to wrestle his own demons of jealousy and anxiety; skinny and haunted, he captures perfectly the essence of a man who's dying for a good night's sleep, or 10.

"Black Snake Moan" is a road movie set in a house, a story of coming a long way while staying put. It's also, as much as anything, a story about music, a distillation of what music can mean to one person, or to many. Brewer frames the picture with archival footage of Son House, explaining that the blues is all about love between a woman and a man: It's the heaven, the hell and everything in between.

Lazarus and Rae bring that idea to life over and over again in "Black Snake Moan." Jackson does his own singing in the movie; he also plays guitar. (Brewer and music coordinator Scott Bomar sent him to study with Mississippi musicians like Big Jack Johnson, Kenny Brown, Cedric Burnside and Sam Carr. One of the inspirations for Lazarus' character was R.L. Burnside, who died before the movie was completed.) When Lazarus finally comes 'round to pulling his life together -- doing so involves picking up his long-dormant guitar -- instead of offering a song of praise to God, he takes a stab at "Stackolee," a story of blood and murder that's been rewritten and reinvigorated almost as many times as it's been sung. It's a very dark song, and Lazarus, finally back from the dead, goes at it with wicked glee: The song's rhythmic repetition is exhilarating, but it's also as comforting and familiar as the rocking of a cradle. Lazarus, performing in a club for the first time in a long while, is surrounded by dancers -- Rae is one of them -- who look as if they're in the throes of ecstasy, sexual or religious or very likely both.

"Stackolee" isn't a particularly nice song, but it's an enduring one, reborn each time it's reinterpreted, reinvented. And so a song about death is also one about everlasting life. Is that a contradiction, or a self-evident truth? When it comes to the blues, sometimes the only answer is another question. And as Lazarus and Rae know, sometimes that's enough.

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