Slam (1998)

Lauren: "Never give anyone the power to take away your freedom"

By Marc Levin
With Saul Williams and Sonja Sohn

I came across Slam while on Wikipedia looking into music genres and cross-over genres. I think I somehow ended up on Industrial hip hop and one of the prominent artist was Saul Williams. I then read his wiki and they mentioned Slam. I decided to see it then; it felt like something I would enjoy.

Ray Joshua is a young man who lives by selling drugs but his real interest is to write. Ray loves writing slam poetry but does not consider himself a poet. One evening as Ray is meeting a friend there is gun fire and his friend falls to the ground. Not as quick to react as the rest of the crowd, Ray runs away but he is caught by police. Ray has marijuana on him and that is enough to put him in jail, at least before his trial. Unable to pay bail he will have to spend some time there. When troubles start around him he stands his ground proudly but remain non-violent relying on his verbal skills to remain safe. This is when he is noticed by the prison writing teacher, a young woman named Lauren, who invites him to join her class.

I was quite surprised with Slam. The movie is hard to first get into and subtitles are not a luxury most of the time to understand everything that is going on. Nevertheless, it surprisingly and tactfully tackles important themes and social stigmas. The metaphors are quite rich and extend beyond the slam as the prison and freedom are both mental and physical at times. I was dubious about the realism of a scene where the whole prison court stands still, in what was going to be a fight or "a hit", in order to listen to Ray's slam.

Still, I appreciated the immersion in a world almost unknown, in the opposition of the writer and poet within the reality of his drug ways, the weight of the consequences of drugs on freedom of people who use them. The main issue dealt with is the fact that violence gives birth to more violence. Ray attempts to use his poetry to end the vicious cycle of violence tries to do. We never find out whether he succeeds or not, but we know that he is a more grown man after trying.

Lauren, the writing teacher, is a complex character but her voice carries through and we get to learn more about her when she is pushed, and reveals to Ray the extent of what she has been through.

The movie is not always of a constant quality--sometimes it feels that the dialogues were left aside in order to work more on the slam poetry. Some of the scenes, mostly rapid shots of random people, feel like fillers and seem inconsistent compared to the rest of the movie.

I believe the goal of the movie was to promote expression as a way to avoid the phenomenon of young adults bottling up their feelings and finding relief only in physical violence. In that sense, the movie succeeds entirely.

I liked: Behind its immersive ghetto jail appearances holds acidic statement about society. Powerful slam poetry. Puts forward the power of words.

I disliked: Takes time to start. Seems a bit far fetched at times.

79/100
A great immersion through the eyes of a fringe we rarely hear of, the artists from the wrong side of town.