You're invited to the party of the decade!

Not quite but still a rollicking good time. Not nearly as dazzling in technique as Tupac: Resurrection (2003), Dave Chapelle’s Block Party is an old school type of documentary where the style is unobtrusive, allowing the erratic, gritty images to speak for themselves.

To call the viewing of Block Party transcendental may be a bit hyperbolic yet in a sense it truly was for this viewer. Block Party is a hard film to gauge since some viewers may not count themselves among the many fans of hip hop music and/or culture.

The film simply brings together a group of artists/performers who aren’t necessarily the “hottest” - at least in the minds of today’s fickle and petulant music buyers. But it’s these specific group of music artists (who are so deserved of this title) that form the basis for what hip hop truly means both yesterday and today. And it seems to be this impetus which gets David Chapelle to throw a lively party-concert-comedy show billed as the ultimate New York City tradition, a block party - in one little intersecting corner called Quincy and Downing streets in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. In front of the trippy edifice, The Broken Angel (with its eccentric owners Arthur and Cynthia Wood) , no less. An experience far richer experiencing than in witnessing I'm sure.

As I watched Block Party, the wonderful documentary WattStax (1973) came to mind. Both films have the ability to capture a time, place, and sound in a way that few films can. And this is where Block Party, like WattStax elevates itself.

For a Detroiter who finally actually experienced one – in, as it happens, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn - catching the Notorious B.I.G. at a 1993 (free) block party just when B.I.G. was blowing up the charts, the film ably takes you to this world, small in physical scope, but a larger than life experiential happening. Even though we know it’s September 18, 2004, the film could be 1998, 1995, or possibly 1982 as block parties have long helped bring about and fuel the whole hip hop movement.

To many, the film may be a staid series of concert performances interspersed with Chappelle mugging for the camera and the live audience. It’s what I feared the film would be. But this direct technique only endears us as it allows the images, artists, and Dave sell the “story”. And for the astute and attuned observer, appropriately, the film celebrates “blackness“, hip hop, and the community struggle without entirely alienating all other viewers.

But more importantly, these particular artists lend an almost historical quality to hip hop and neo-soul, especially the socially conscious type of hip hop which really came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s (with Public Enemy, amongst others, being at the forefront during this time) which in today’s musical climate is not exactly the top seller. I believe this film will be much studied later on for what it has captured - the moments and movements I speak of.

We the audience are in the thick of things here, right up close, whether it’s Chappelle touring his Ohio haunts or a New York neighborhood in various humorous ways. Or interviewing the film’s “actors” (part of the “bookends” of the musical performances), people gleefully and willingly caught within the entirety of Chappelle’s timely idea turned reality - which is then intercut against rapid fire performances.

There’s a power and presence to the musical performances of favorites of mine: Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu or Dead Prez to name a few. It really is all about the excitable nature of these performances, not in a perfectionist way, but rather in the communal experience. An experience felt every summer across inner cities. This communal theme is carried to fruition when Chappelle insist on bringing a little Southwest Ohio to Bed-Stuy. It’s no small coincidence that Chappelle chose these particular performers. There is reasoning behind his purposeful, secretive, mad genius - many are, as I said, in the socially conscious vein musically and lyrically.

The observational mode seems to rule the day, the seemingly unfocused film truly reveals a razor sharp focus on occasion. The film has a lingering effect is its upclose ability to transport us into this world. What makes Chappelle’s humor so different than most comedians is that it appears effortless and to use hip hop vernacular, is “real”.

And to be “real”, Chapelle is not the funniest of comics to me, his humor can be juvenile and embarrassing. On the other hand Chapelle’s personable and unpretentious demeanor makes his straightforward, deceptive comedic commentary cut to the bone much quicker, a refreshing attribute appreciated by this particular audience. Chapelle, who at this time had just signed, then later walked away from a multiyear $50 million deal with cable outlet Comedy Central.

Visually, the Super 16mm film blow up to 35mm is apropos, but there is the occasional irritating blur of soft focus. And although I expected more visual pizzazz from the innovative director Michel Gondry and his highly talented cinematographer Ellen Kureas - I respect, concur, and champion the observer mode Gondry provides us.

The intercutting between the practices and performances simplistically and excitingly bridges the gap between the rehearsed - in and of itself “real” performance - and the actual performances, which generates a connection to Chappelle and the artists in a surprisingly moving manner. The performers seem to be having an infectiously jocular time.

Understandably not everyone enjoys hip hop. It’s here, like various other iconoclastic and distinct styles of music (e.g. Drum and Bass), where the film may lose viewers without this specific connective interest. If the film had encompassed other forms of music for example, maybe the film would have wider appeal. So to call this a niche film is not necessarily an insult. But like Chappelle, many of these artists have achieved mainstream success, despite, and partially because of, their fearlessness in attacking their world through activism and social outspokenness deep within their works.

Chappelle gleefully tells us that this provides a voyeuristic opportunity and ability to place us within the heart (for the most part) of a hip hop concert experience, this alongside the enraptured feeling of a block party experience. The “golden ticket” Chappelle passes out in the film becomes, for the holders and us the viewers, our gateway into Chapelle’s vision come alive, and what a golden ticket it is. 

Finally, although the film does not totally capture the pure emotional and physicality of being within the throngs of a block party, Block Party does capture a certain je ne sais quoi, a “spiritual essence” of the experience, which is perhaps much more potent.