Damon Russell's Snow On That Bluff tells the story of Curtis Snow, a crack dealer who routinely robs competing dealers, living in one of Atlanta's most dangerous neighborhoods known as 'The Bluff'. A very unique experience, Snow On That Bluff is a pseudo-documentary that seems to be mostly authentic, outside of a few stages sequences. The films begins when Curtis Snow steals a camera from some college kids who have stumbled into his neighborhood looking for dope. He decides to start documenting his life, filming himself rob dealers and sells drugs in an effort to provide for his baby momma and 2-year old son. When one of the drug dealers Curtis ripped off comes looking for him, things begin to spiral out of control. Snow On That Bluff has raised controversy and questions about authenticity due to a few seemingly staged sequences, and while I certainly agree with these criticisms what makes Snow On Tha Bluff fascinating is its authentic main character, Curtis Snow. Snow is a man whose born and raised in the hood and the film subverts typical documentary expectations by letting this man essentially document his life through his perspective. Snow On That Bluff provides an in-depth, personal look at the hopelessness of the ghetto, the inability for anyone to actually leave and make a better life, using Curtis and his young son to capture this. In fact, some of the most effective sequences of the film revolve around Snow and his young boy, showing the elliptical lifestyle of the ghetto, with Curtis trying to make a man out of his young son, almost completely devoid of any type of nurturing ability due in large part to the tough lifestyle being all he knows. Say what you will about the film's staged sequences but Damon Russell's Snow On That Bluff is a unique portrait of urban crime that's greatest attribute is its ability to capture the underlying sense of chaos and violence that can strike at any point in this drug-based lifestyle.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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