Ganja and Hess: Consumption

So last time I think I tried too hard to focus on too many things. So I just want to focus on a few scenes and what they could say about ideas from the movie and I want to relate some of it to the music because the music is very present in the film.

First, I want to focus a bit on the victimization of Hess. We don’t know too much about the man who kills Hess, George, we know he regrets the kill, and when he commits suicide in response to that guilt (after also brushing his teeth in bathwater (?!)). That’s when Hess is first drawn to drink blood, and he probably barely even understands what’s come over him. From the get go, his vampirism is out of his control, and this is further reflected in his immediate wrenching into a toilet. However, I think it’s worth mentioning that this is the only time we see him have very, very physical signs of regret, and it’s interesting that this is the only not-heterosexual act of feasting. It’s gross, Hess drinks blood from a bathroom floor, it’s not attractive, and there’s no skin to skin contact. To me, especially when in comparison to the other blood drinking scenes, it’s like a huge “no homo” call out. Yes, it’s also because this is Hess’s first experience of drinking blood, and it’s addicting and probably a huge shock, but that doesn’t fully negate the other things in the scene. This disgust at drinking blood from people is furthered by learning Hess starts stealing blood bags, and especially how frantic he feels when drinking the blood on his own. For example, at 30:27 he leaves a party to chug some blood, it’s urgent, the chanting comes in earlier than the blood shows up on screen and when Hess is finally in the bathroom, he spills a drop into the sink. This is how addiction forces Hess to act, and there’s no control of it.

I think the purpose of the chanting the happens during every blood drinking is also interesting. At least on the surface, it plays the role of this ancient overwhelming nauseating almost soundscape that takes over everything and calls back to the African roots of the knife, it’s the feeling of addiction almost. Repetitive, with easily definable lyrics, heavy, and inescapable. The repetitive chanting also helps to represent the inescapable nature of this vampirism, in whatever form. And it also brings out this circular motion, it spins and spins and never really moves on from its main harmonies, and it ties into this inescapably because there’s no end sight or change to it, the chants just oscillate back and forth, fades in and out from the background, maybe always present just too soft to hear. The chanting with it’s completely overwhelming soundscape and we’re often treated to nonlinear scenes with a faster pacing and occasionally we see this field of tall dried grass (wheat or barley, I don’t know). The music opens up a space outside of time, this liminal area that kind of helps give it this addiction/vampirism this larger feel, maybe more power? The chanting acts in parallel to the vampiric cycle of addiction. We even start and end at a church, we see Hess fall to vampirism as a victim and then we see Ganja fall to vampirism initially as a victim too, the knife helps creates a vicious cycle of addiction to blood. The only thing that’s certain is Hess has no control of his addiction.

At 36 minutes we’re in the third scene of Hess drinking blood where he’s kissing a woman (who, btw I think Prof. Ongiri mentioned this, but she has her natural hair curls unlike Ganja who is depicted frequently with straight hair). First, we hear the chanting creeping in at 35:35, could it be that in a fit of sex or something Hess is going to fall into addiction and kill this woman? That is, until 35:51 where Hess is stabbed and some soul/funk music overlaps with the chanting, and the music is fighting for dominance. Each music starts to warp and the woman screams kill him, the camera starts showing only a bit of the frame, and we don’t see everything there is to see. But as Hess takes control of the situation the chant music prevails and he rips into the woman’s neck after she shoots him.

The music slows again and we see Hess staring odd into the distance as someone is getting drained of blood. We’re treated to laughing and people in masks as Hess walks out and throws up in the bathroom amongst laughing. Even the toilet is broken. And then we’re at part 3 of the film, “letting go.” I don’t fully understand the scene, but I think it introduces complexity to this cycle of addiction that’s echoed in the soundscape. Like, since when does the chanting have to fight for dominance of 70s soul/funk music? Could it be that this addiction is transforming into something other than a cycle of just addiction, and if so, what’s the other aspect? Is the addition tied to classism in this scene? Violence? Because Hess is a professor, he wears a suit, he’s very upper class, especially when compared to the abode we get to see of this woman and maybe the other man who fights Hess (I think it’s interesting that this other guy is wearing something so colorful because I think that ties into the classism too). Does the addiction, or this strange whatever it is (classism maybe?) prevail? How do they affect one another? Again, who are these laughing figures? Are they representative of high society, and why are they laughing?

In Ganja’s first kill, we start with a sexual encounter and some more artistic shots of foreplay and different types of pleasure. The music is also atmospheric and more unconventional, and it’s not the chant nor the funk/soul music we hear earlier. This scene sets itself apart from every other scene. At 1:25:20 the music is overlapped by the chanting as she indulges in the vampiric sense. Similar to Hess’s first kill but in the opposite order. It kind of shows that Ganja and Hess have this duality thing going on. At 1:26:00 ish we hear like, growls or something? And Ganja is covered only in a red sheet and her expression doesn’t seem happy either. She doesn’t wretch in a toilet, she doesn’t stare off into the distance, and the next scene is the pair disposing of the body, that turns out to be alive and Ganja regrets the killing. Again, I think it’s really strange how the music overlaps and fights for dominance. This time, it’s like lust precedes the vampirism and I don’t know everything there is to say about that, but I want to point out that Ganja is the active person here. In most of Hess’s actions, his drinking blood is framed as a necessary thing, and often death isn’t led by him, his first real kill arises more from self defense and addiction than pure violence, so what does is say that Ganja is the one to in a sense, commit this vampirism on her own accord. Why does the woman have to be the one to get to this vampirism through lust too??

Now there’s one more scene before this I want to talk about, it’s a turning point almost. Hess’s first “kill,” that we don’t even see in full detail, happens at 1:02:00 and coincides with Ganja’s scream when finding her dead husband. This is also… odd.. per say? Like, even though it’s assumed that Hess has killed this woman and left her baby to survive on its own, we don’t see any details like we do in some of the other deaths. We haven’t seen Hess kill before, and we know that George, Ganja’s husband, killed himself after “killing” Hess, so Ganja makes the assumption that Hess killed her husband, like how we’ve made the assumption that Hess has killed this woman. But we didn’t see it. I mean, he probably did, but why? What prompted the change when it didn’t necessarily line up with what we had seen beforehand? Ganja? Knowing that her husband was dead in the wine cellar? Did the change happen because of Ganja’s relationship to Hess or could it be something to due with a woman showing up on the premises? Are we making assumptions and how do those assumptions potentially change our viewing of the film? I also know this all may be a bit of a stretch, but maybe it’s a worthwhile stretch.

I also think it’s really weird that Ganja still enters a relationship with Hess even believing Hess killed her husband? We don’t see anything about her relationship with the husband, and only later do we start to learn that Ganja is really a big fan of money and power while Hess is more apathetic. It’s also significant that Ganja is a woman and Hess is a man. Like, if the roles were reversed, how would we view their relationship? I also think it’s interesting that after this scene, we have Ganja’s scene talking about her grievances on watching out for herself because there was no one else to trust, which kind of justifies her actions in a way. However, it’s all real nuanced and I just, I don’t know what to make of it.

Other things that could be interesting to look into off the top of my head. The music, but much more in depth, especially the dichotomy of the Western Canon music compared to the more funk/jazz stuff then compared to the chanting piece that comes up whenever there’s vampirism. Also, I’m curious about how religion plays into the narrative as well, and what kind of connections happen with Christianity and especially what the place of the African knife that caused the vampirism plays into it. I also didn’t really explore the Blaxploitation article, but honestly, I think to give a good, well-rounded commentary on it I should watch maybe more than one film from the time, because otherwise I’m not sure how useful my comments would be haha.