*Academy award-winning director Spike Lee has tackled topics many topics relating to the Black experience during his 30-year career. With his new NETFLIX film Da 5 Bloods, Lee explores the Black Vietnam Vet experience.
With equal doses of action, adventure, social commentary and a bit of comedy, it tells the story of 4 Black vets who served together returning to Vietnam – Paul (Delroy Lindo- The Good Fight), Otis (Clarke Peters –The Wire, Treme), Eddie (Norm Lewis – Phantom of the Oprea), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.- The Wire, BlacKkKlansman ) named after the original Temptations when you add in David (Jonathan Majors– The Last Black Man in San Francisco) who joins the “bloods” out of concern for his father, Paul’s current mental state – to retrieve the remains of their fallen squad leader and snatch some gold they buried during their tour.
Through some random twist of fate, the film drops in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and the world rocked by protests over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. With themes that seem to run concurrent to what is actually taking place in the world today, it opens with a clip of Muhammad Ali explaining why he refuses to go to be drafted to serve in the Vietnam war.
The lack of support for Vets returning from Vietnam has been well documented, but with 32% of those serving in Vietnam being Black men, the lack of resources while attempting to reconnect to a country that doesn’t seem to love or respect you was devasting for some.
A point the film serves up in a scene where we see black American soldiers listening to the radio Vietnam propaganda broadcast from real-life figure Hanoi Hannah who asks the question, “is it fair to serve more than the white Americans who sent you here?”
Black men and mental health is a topic that has become mainstream over the last few years. Therapy in the Black community was a taboo subject for many years. EURweb correspondent Jill Munroe discussed with the cast their conversations with friends and families around the topic, performing the film’s stunts and the impact of the social justice protests.
Lindo, whose character Paul is a Trump supporter that has had a hard time adjusting to life outside of the service over the past 40 years and is now suffering from PTSD shared with Munroe how his own family has dealt with mental health challenges and Peters talked about how he has a friend that is still dealing with the fallout. Broadway star Norm Lewis explained how learning to use an automatic weapon gave him insight to the power some people feel when using guns.
Da 5 Bloods is being released June 12 on NETFLIX.
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