In serene suburban Los Angeles reside an ordinary family. They’re led by the rugged but well-meaning Gideon (Paul Butler) and his wife, Suzie (Mary Alice), who have two grown children (Richard Brooks and Carl Lumbly), who have offspring of their own. Their lives are, on the surface, the definition of traditional – they attend church, have small dinner parties with their close-knit group of friends, and generally lead ordinary lives. However, one afternoon, they’re visited by someone unexpected – Harry (Danny Glover) is an old friend from back home, who Gideon and Suzie knew when they lived in the south, and who they haven’t seen for close to thirty years. Passing through the city on a trip, he decides to make a brief stop to visit his old friends and rest for a small while before continuing on his journey. Naturally, Gideon and Suzie are more than happy to oblige – after all, Harry brings some old-fashioned charm to their house, carrying the southern charm they miss so much. However, what starts as a brief overnight visit turns into weeks, where Harry begins to wear out his welcome, and brings with him a sense of malice that begins to erode the family’s happiness – the problems underpinning the family begin to manifest, with bickering turning into huge fights, and the long dormant issues they hold with each other come to the fore, as a result of Harry’s role as an agent provocateur to the family, who don’t realize how their houseguest is relishing in their drama – but regardless of how much their friends who can see right through him warn them as to Harry’s darker nature, Gideon and Suzie can’t bring themselves to seeing him as the cause of their problem – but his manipulations soon prove to go too far, with the couple realizing it is a lot easier to welcome someone into your home as it is to get them out.

There are very few individuals that can legitimately attest to making a definitive piece of art, one that supersedes all others to become a cornerstone of its particular form. Charles Burnett is one of them, with his 1978 debut Killer of Sheep being perhaps the most important independent film ever produced, both for what it is as a film (in terms of how Burnett weaves together visual style and narrative prowess to create one of the most incredibly rich and fascinating portrayals of social issues) and what it stands for, with every independent film produced over the last forty years being entirely indebted to what Burnett did, since he wasn’t weighed down by the lack of financial assistance or industry support, but rather compelled by it to make something that is authentic, honest and aligned with his own artistic curiosities. Moreover, his career hasn’t been the most prolific, directing very few films, but each one of them fascinating and worth in-depth exploration all on their own. The film that normally accompanies Killer of Sheep in discussions of Burnett’s masterpieces is To Sleep with Anger, his ambitious follow-up produced over a decade later, but formed from the maturity and experience Burnett would acquire over that time. The two films stand side-by-side as the director’s masterpieces, and while I’ve ruminated over the brilliance of his subdued approach to realism before, To Sleep with Anger presented me with an even more intimidating challenge – to look into Burnett’s harrowing portrayal of a family teetering dangerously close on disintegrating, working through the terrifying social odyssey that the director sets down, and finding the value in a haunting, but oddly beautiful, look into a side of society that doesn’t often find itself the subject of such insightful discussions. In short, this may just be his masterpiece, not only for how it stands on its own as a deceptive social drama but also in how it develops many of the themes other directors have struggled to realize with such poignancy and perverted elegance.

Much like the previous film, To Sleep with Anger is a film heavily influenced by what the director saw around him – perhaps not as gritty and naturalistic as his debut, this film is instead his version of a Southern Gothic family saga (albeit setting itself in sunny Los Angeles), brimming with perversions and fascinating insights into the human condition that don’t rear their heads all that often, unless summoned by a filmmaker willing to deal with the consequences of populating a story with unlikeable, but still profoundly interesting, individuals. From the jump, we realize that this film is not going to be a particularly pleasant experience, since even the first few moments, while exuberant and joyful, are undercut with a foreboding sense of dread, which is only exacerbated with the arrival of the character of Harry, whose jovial and charming nature conceals a sinister set of quirks that gradually dissipate into the lives of his host family, tearing them apart while he relishes in seeing them struggle with the inner turmoil he has intentionally caused. Burnett was clearly not trying to make something that would necessarily give the audience the chance to escape for a few hours, but instead an opportunity for us to be voyeurs to an ordinary family torn apart by the conflict borne from within. The value inherent to this film can only come if we’re willing to surrender to the director’s vision, and not expect him to offer us any resolution, or even answer the fundamental questions that underpin this film. We’re kept guessing – the viewer never quite knows where To Sleep with Anger is going to lead, or what inspired these characters to behave in such a way. Yet, we’re never left unsatisfied – under Burnett’s careful direction, these ambiguities are vague but not frustrating, and once we understand what this film is attempting to say, the answers to the burning questions aren’t only inconsequential, they become a nuisance in themselves since the perplexing character-driven drama is far more compelling than anything that would have come from a more traditional approach to such a story.

Like any great drama about a family on the verge of collapsing, To Sleep with Anger can sometimes be a harrowing experience, but it avoids becoming too overwrought by inserting a sly and acidic sense of humour to the proceedings. Not at all a comedy, the film is rather a subversive comment on family structure, executed with a wry wit that only makes the underlying terror all the more poignant. The intentions Burnett had when conceiving of this film are undeniably murky – he works through some challenging subject matter to deliver a poignant and unsettling portrayal of family issues, but avoiding the heavy-handed moralizing that comes with these stories normally – “misery loves family” is an adage often associated with August: Osage County, which is comparative to this film insofar as the dynamic between relatives is worsened by the presence of tension that threatens to tear them apart and cause irreparable damage to their lives. This often comes on behalf of external factors, which start as an innocuous presence that we are all delighted to see, but gradually start to realize is far more sinister than we expected at the start. Burnett’s filmmaking is absolutely incredible in this regard – his ability to derive such meaningful commentary from a relatively simple story, through simply eliding the most fundamental aspects that would tie everything together and instead replacing it with a more profoundly unsettling sense of bewildering mystery, makes To Sleep with Anger a riveting, but extremely disconcerting, work of drama. This film isn’t always clear about where it’s heading, and for some viewers, it can be seen as something of a challenge since it plunges emotional depths that seem quite out of place in a film such as this (such as in the third act, where there are multiple moments of off-the-wall absurdity that Burnett still portrays with such unexpected gracefulness), but it flourishes into something quite extraordinary – we don’t necessarily get the resolution we expected, but rather the one we needed.

Burnett is a director often driven by allegory, and To Sleep with Anger is not any exception – it may appear to be a straightforward drama about a family working through their issues over the course of a few weeks (and in the midst of a crisis), but it goes much further than this. Burnett dabbles quite heavily in metaphor and imagery, and this is most evident in the way he portrays Harry. Arriving without warning and with no intention of leaving, Harry is a lovable vagabond caught between worlds – he has the charm of “back home”, possessing the warmth and class of a true gentleman, but as we get to know him, we realize he is far more street-smart than we initially imagined, willing to do anything to advance his own plans, dismissing the needs of those around him without a second thought. It’s hardly surprising that much of the discussions surrounding Harry make reference to his animalistic qualities – he’s compared wolves, foxes and a countless range of other predators, which is barely a coincidence. In bringing the character to life, Burnett casts an actor who is the epitome of genial charm and everyman values, the wonderful Danny Glover, who is giving a definitive performance here, one that manages to encapsulate everything that makes him such a remarkable actor, while still giving him the space to do something entirely new. Terrifying, but in a thoroughly authentic way, Glover commands the film and delivers an astonishing portrayal of a character who is undeniably one of the great cultural villains of the 1990s. Dressed in impeccable suits and always bearing a sardonic grin, Glover’s Harry is the definition of pure, unhinged terror, and stands as one of the esteemed actor’s finest performances to date. The rest of the cast is also wonderful, but a special mention must go to Mary Alice, whose commitment to the role of Suzie, the conflicted matriarch who watches as her family disintegrates as a result of the visitor she so happily welcomed into her home, is astonishing.

The terrifying distant cousin of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, Burnett’s film is a rousing and demented, a fascinating exploration of a family undergoing several crises while trying to remain sane and together when every external factor is present that tries to tear them apart. This film is built on the well-worn adage that “fish and houseguests start to smell after three days”, with the conversations towards the perverted nature of the main character’s delight in seeing those who were so generous to him fall apart being simultaneously insightful into the darker side of humanity, and profoundly terrifying in a way that is more unsettling than even the most demented horror films. Burnett has a knack for condensing life into a single narrative, and while To Sleep with Anger may seem to be consistently on the verge of falling apart at the seams (which was clearly by design), the director keeps everything subdued enough to prevent it from resorting to anything other than complete authenticity. A film that consistently seems to be on the edge of an eruption, we get a deranged joy out of watching these characters engage in these games of wits, with Glover in particular playing one of the most memorable cinematic antagonists of previous years, a man so deeply charming and endearing, his manipulations are both terrifying and delightful to witness. This is not a film that takes its subject lightly, and there are numerous moments of unbridled horror that prove to be so exceptionally disconcerting. Dark, twisted, absurdly funny and extremely unsettling, To Sleep with Anger is a masterpiece of 1990s filmmaking and one of the most fascinating explorations of the human condition produced during this time. We collectively need to view Charles Burnett as not only a pioneer of independent filmmaking, but as one of the most important to work in the medium as a whole, since his films reflect a keen understanding of the world around him, and demonstrate a skilful ability to portray it in ways that are surprising, insightful and utterly unforgettable in many ways.