DVD Review: Dave Chappelle's Block Party

Part documentary, part satire, part road trip, part concert film, Dave Chappelle's Block Party is ultimately a film about the unlikely commonalities that are at the heart of America. Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Block Party ostensibly chronicles Chappelle's quest to throw the ultimate block party. The resultant film is a resonant, albeit somewhat disjointed, look at how the heartland and the 'hood, regardless of how both ends of the spectrum would deny it, speak with the same unconscious, but universal voice.

Block Party opens in Chappelle's rural Yellow Springs, Ohio hometown (population 4500), however it's anything but a celebrity homecoming. Rather, the movie goes to great lengths to depict the town's inhabitants, and Chappelle himself, as representatives of the American Heartland. From the outset, though, the understated sarcasm that is part and parcel of his brand of humor becomes the underlying thread that weaves through the entire film. Chappelle's ulterior motive is to load the citizenry on a bus to Brooklyn for the "ultimate block party." It's a motley crew who signs on for the trip, from the woman who sells him cigarettes at the corner store, to the town's two probation officers (one white, one black, neither known for soul), to the entire Central State University Marching Band.

Chappelle doesn't disappoint them - or the viewing audience, for that matter. While Block Party is billed as a concert film, it works on a number of levels, not the least of which is social commentary. The characters who populate the film are real people, the kind of Americans who may have slipped through the cracks of mainstream society, but have built a reality for themselves nonetheless. Take, for instance, the owners of the Broken Angel House, which serves as a backdrop for the block party. At first glance, they seem like the oldest surviving acid casualties in the world — which they probably are — but between Gondry's direction and Chappelle's conversational interview techniques, they ultimately come across as a lovely couple whose marriage has endured over 40 years.

Article Author: Ray Ellis

Ray Ellis is a freelance writer who has been dissecting pop culture and its effect on how we view ourselves for over twenty years, ruffling feathers and dragging unsuspecting pedestrians along for the ride whenever possible.

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