Spike Lee Lights Up the Oscar Conversation with "Da 5 Bloods" Trailer

Scene from Da 5 Bloods

When we last left director Spike Lee, he had broken through a decades-long feud with The Academy Awards and won an Oscar for BlacKkKlansman. The film found him capable of taking his angry style and presenting in an accessible way that made audiences latch onto its subject matter of racial divides in society. Even as time has passed, he seems just as ambitious as ever, wanting to tell stories that reshape how we see black America as something more complex and interesting. Considering that everyone was eager to see what he'd do next with his first Netflix movie, many see this as a new era, where Lee will be returning to the conversation sooner than later.

Da 5 Bloods is promised to be a Vietnam War epic like no other. With few exceptions (if any), there hasn't been a war story that explores the struggles of the black experience in this way. One has to wonder what he has to say, especially since we know that he won't hold back and get as confrontational as he believes that the story needs to be. While everyone won't get to see it in a theater, it's coming very soon to light up the Oscar conversation, giving us something that prognosticators sorely need right now. From the first trailer, it feels like we got our first surefire nominee and one that could find Lee going bigger and bolder than ever before. While it has some trappings of Vietnam War movie tropes, it's still got a lot of greatness under its surface.

On one hand, it's difficult to be totally excited for Da 5 Bloods for one reason. Lee's previous war epic, Miracle at St. Anna, wasn't well-received in 2008. Considering that his latest will find him going just as long and personal into the journey, one has to wonder if this will be just as tedious, benefiting from the ability to pause and watch in chunks, or if things will be different this time around. Given that BlacKkKlansman feels like one of his most vital films since The 25th Hour, I think there's room to argue that this will be a triumphant artistic statement, especially in the hands of Netflix, who is on a roll with excellent Oscar-winning movies over the past three years (The Irishman deserved better).

Considering that 2020 is looking to be a year where every nominee debuted on streaming, I have reason to believe that this is the breakthrough year that Netflix really needed. Maybe it will benefit from Fall season movies being incomplete, but having Da 5 Bloods ready to go makes one wonder if this is the year that streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu will begin to be something more than the other. They've already worked with so many prestigious directors, and now that the pandemic is limiting options, there is no choice but to be open with this new world. 

I would love the strange world where Da 5 Bloods is an Oscar contender, getting Lee his first back-to-back Oscar recognition. If nothing else, I'm excited to have a high-profile movie worthy of streaming in quarantine to keep me entertained. I'm tired of garbage like Scoob! Give me these masterpieces that contextualize something vivid and exciting on film. Lee may be entering the phase of career where he gets the respect he sorely deserved. Either that or BlacKkKlansman remains a fluke, like most of his career judging them as separate entities of an artist with wild tendencies. Sometimes it works, and you just have to trust him on this. 

Check out the trailer below:

It looks amazing. Here's the plot description according to IMDb:

Four African American vets battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen Squad Leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide.

This definitely sounds like it will be a decades-spanning journey that will hopefully present a new side to the Vietnam War. While most of the masterpieces in this genre are decades old, it would be great to have a story that finds an emotional depth in going back to a place of trauma to have some sense of closure, and to bring home something of value. The trailer has all of this passion going for it that you can't help but feel compelled to know what happens next. 

It's hard to say which element of the story will get the most attention, but one can imagine that this extensive cast will be dominating the acting categories, notably someone like Chadwick Boseman. Given his recent turn in Black Panther, he feels like he's working towards that goal. Given that BlacKkKlansman got Adam Driver his first nomination, anything is possible. It just has to land with the right audience, and given our current condition, it's hard to not see that happening.

Most of all, it feels good to have an Oscar-caliber movie to talk about. Maybe it's all for naught, given that the greatest movies still tend to come out in the fall. Still, it's hard not to want to believe that Lee's follow-up will be just as exciting and essential to a cinematic narrative. I want to believe that because I've seen his recent work and believe that he's never lost that passion to tell stories that matter to him. They may be good or bad, but you always know it's him underneath. I want to believe that this is the best version of that, presenting something personal and poignant that will make sense of the war in ways we've never seen before.