Blood Bonds

By RICHARD CORLISS

TO SLEEP WITH ANGER

Directed and Written by Charles Burnett

Harry Mention (Danny Glover) is a charmer of the old school, a man of courtly wiles and undiluted Mississippi magic. He spins tales of the Old South that mesmerize the family whose South Central Los Angeles home he comes to visit. He can even hypnotize the backyard chickens. But some soon wonder if this beguiling wastrel doesn't carry the curse of charisma for a family that has never quite shaken the past from its restless heart. When the father suddenly falls ill, they are sure of it: Harry is the devil's trickster.

In too many current films, there is no past, no family; characters are immaculately conceived from the cliches of the moment. Writer-director Charles Burnett redresses these lapses with a movie that dramatizes the blood bonds that still tie us, the gene pool in which we swim or sink. Credit not just Burnett's script, always open to irony and surprise, but also Glover and the ensemble cast, whose names are an honor roll of underknowns: Paul Butler, Mary Alice, Carl Lumbly, Richard Brooks, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Vonetta McGee.

If Spike Lee's films are the equivalent of rap music -- urgent, explosive, profane -- then Burnett's movie is good old urban blues. It catches both the music of black American speech and the rhythm of the inner-city working class. But one needn't set Burnett at odds with other filmmakers to appreciate his work. This picture transcends racial stereotypes -- and reviewers' stereotypes of black films -- with an acute evocation of the down-home ghosts that may haunt and taunt any urban family. Like Harry at his eloquent best, To Sleep with Anger is a spellbinder. R.C.