Race War

Miracle at St. Anna

by Cindy Fuchs

It could only happen in New York. More precisely, it could only happen in Spike Lee's New York. Here, where generations, dreams and communities come together daily, aging postal worker Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) runs into the man he most dreads: an Italian fascist he met in Tuscany during World War II. The encounter sets in motion the mystery at the center of Miracle at St. Anna. Hector looks out from his window at the post office, recognizes the gnarled face before him, pulls out a German luger and shoots. 

The next few moments, filled with screaming customers and bloody mess, recall briefly the orchestrated chaos of Lee's previous film, Inside Man. But this allusion gives way almost immediately to the film's extended flashback to 1944 Tuscany where Hector and his fellow Buffalo Soldiers face down German troops and American prejudice.

Hector's war story includes acts of courage and fear, ingenuity and chance. Like other familiar war stories, it features heroics and explosive combat, mangled corpses and dismembered limbs, as well as male bonding, pretty village girls and a mysterious, waify child named Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi). Unlike many American war stories, this one also includes explicit references to the racism that shaped the war. Again and again, Hector and other members of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division contend with abuse from white commanders as well as solicitations from the lusciously red-lipped "Axis Sally" (Alexandra Maria Lara), an Aryan version of Tokyo Rose who warns that while they're at war, "The white man is raping your wives and daughters."

Such nightmares are lined up alongside events in the Tuscan hills, where Hector and three friends are first lost, then assigned to "capture a Kraut" for questioning. When Pfc. Train (Omar Benson Miller) befriends the injured Angelo (who calls him "the Chocolate Giant"), the U.S. soldiers seek help at a village. Tensions escalate between Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke) and Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), in particular over the beautiful Renata (Valentina Cervi), but also over their mission. While Stamps believes the 92nd can "prove" their worth and so fight institutional racism at home, Bishop argues that the war has only showed the entrenchment of racism, and its endless ugliness.

Awkward at times and moving at others, Miracle is surely ambitious (as if Lee needed to include every possible idea, for fear of not getting another chance at the subject). And if it features a few too many war movie clichés, it uses them to make a point, that previous mythic memories — embodied here by John Wayne — need re-examination, that other stories must be told.

(c_fuchs@citypaper.net)

Miracle at St. Anna | Directed by Spike Lee | A Touchstones Pictures release