criterionforum.org

The complexities of race, class, and sexuality collide within a Memphis community in the strikingly raw debut feature from director Ira Sachs. With neorealist immediacy, The Delta tells what at first appears to be a simple love story: two young men—Lincoln (Shayne Gray), a closeted white teenager, and Minh (Thang Chan), a Black Vietnamese immigrant—meet at a cruising spot and embark on a nighttime journey by boat down the Mississippi River. But soon, imbalances of power and privilege emerge between them, as the film develops into a devastating vision of lost, wounded souls reaching out in the dark for human connection.


DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 2K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Ira Sachs, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Audio commentary from 2001 featuring Sachs
New interview with Sachs, conducted by film critic Keith Uhlich
Two short films by Sachs: Vaudeville (1991) and Lady (1993)
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author and film curator Michael Koresky

New cover by Juan Miguel Marin

Oh wow, I haven't seen this since its world premiere (which took place in New Zealand, of all places). I liked it a lot back then, and I was impressed to see a young American independent filmmaker taking his influences from Taiwanese and European cinema. Sachs gave a valiant Q&A for the handful of people who remained after the screening.

It's great to see Criterion put the effort into this film rather than one of his higher profile works (though I'd live to see Forty Shades of Blue get the same attention).