Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

“Arguably the most important black American film of its age, ... ‘starring The Black Community’, and dedicated to ‘all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man’, it’s not what you’d call ‘bourgeois art’. The story, such as it is, concerns a stud, Sweetback (Van Peebles), who’s moved to fight back when two white cops casually beat up a political activist in front of him. He’s on the run for the rest of the movie, with occasional stops for sex and/or further police brutality.... Totally uncompromising, the film accumulates a kind of hallucinatory groove, with unexpected shifts of bizarre humor and vigorous, experimental new wave direction (psychedelic negative images, split screen, etc.) Written, composed, produced, directed and edited by Van Peebles, it remains one of a kind.” (Time Out)

Part of our Cult Classics series