CW: Blood
New Yorker film critic Richard Brody described director Bill Gunn as "a visionary filmmaker left on the sidelines of the most ostensibly liberated period of American filmmaking.” Spike Lee said that Gunn is "one of the most under-appreciated filmmakers of his time.” While Ganja and Hess was the only US film selected for the 1973 Cannes Film Festival's Critics Week and received a rave reception, it was widely panned in the states. There has recently been a re-awakening and resurgence for Bill Gunn and the film’s moving brilliance.
Shot in hazy 16mm and told in Baroque dreamscapes, vivid beauty, despair, and crimson blood, the film defies classification with its hallucinatory visuals, rich metaphors for addiction, raw sexuality and rhythmic, sonic, musical genius that offers a wholly unique commentary on African-American identity.
The scenes of Intimacy challenge traditional depictions of sensuality in cinema to this day.
They are other-worldly, raw, impressionistic with a sense of poetic sensuality and emotional depth. The film uses this raw passion to explore its characters' desires and connection. The slow pacing and evocative music create an ethereal and dreamlike world. African Spiritual symbolism is everywhere juxtaposing Christian imagery, reflecting the characters' yearning for something beyond the ordinary human experience, paralleling their vampiric thirst for blood with a search for fulfillment.
