In itself, this is not a bad film. It offers, what I'm sure many white people will feel, a completely unbiased view on the segregation in Mobile, Alabama. I beg to differ. What is perhaps the films greatest strength and its greatest weakness, is that the maker comes from a 'prominent' white family (read: most likely deeply conservative) with still a lot of economic power (read: used to have many slaves in the past). This is why I'm suspicious of the films' unbiasedness.
However, there are ominous indicators that the maker is really trying to be as open-minded of her background. Of this, the mentioning of the trees is the most poignant. A VIP white man, is explaining that they really like trees, because of tradition and so on. He seems to be completely unaware that trees in the Deep South symbolize lynchings of blacks. It's rather insensitive. It's like stressing the fact to Jews that Germans really like to cook their food on gas. In itself there's nothing wrong with that statement, but you catch my drift. The fact that the makers choose to put this in, seems to say that she's not afraid to mention the darker parts of her past. Or, the more depressing explanation would be that the maker herself is not aware of the fact that trees and the South stand for lynchings.
Also, the similarity between all the Mardi Gras Orders and the KKK is high. It doesn't require a lot of imagination that the KKK took symbols and rituals from these Orders. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of these Orders had been highly instrumental in oppressing the African American people.
The end of the film is even more sinister. It is revealed that the grandfatherly man who is interviewed throughout the film is in fact the grandfather of the filmmaker. His last line is: "For what I am about to say, you have to stop recording" And indeed, the credits start rolling at that point. Now, in any other film this would have seemed a triumph of respect of privacy over the present day omnipresent eye of the camera. But in this case I imagined that he would tell her all sorts of horrible stuff that the Order of Myths used to do.
In closing, I am reasonably sure that the filmmaker was trying for a balanced view and she might have achieved that, within her capabilities. Insofar as anyone can be impartial, she might have come closest. She seems to be best embodied by the Prodigal Liberal daughter, who returns to embrace her deeply conservative "heritage".
However, it's ultimately a quite depressing film and subject, since all the white people are a.) insisting that they don't wanna change anything and b. are saying that black people WANT to be segregated themselves. We never hear the black people say that, actually. And c.) the black people don't seem very confident in their ability to change things, and seemed to have completely settled in their subservient role.
Definitely a case of "Even Obama can not", in the sense that even an Obama-presidency won't change this in any, any way.
However, there are ominous indicators that the maker is really trying to be as open-minded of her background. Of this, the mentioning of the trees is the most poignant. A VIP white man, is explaining that they really like trees, because of tradition and so on. He seems to be completely unaware that trees in the Deep South symbolize lynchings of blacks. It's rather insensitive. It's like stressing the fact to Jews that Germans really like to cook their food on gas. In itself there's nothing wrong with that statement, but you catch my drift. The fact that the makers choose to put this in, seems to say that she's not afraid to mention the darker parts of her past. Or, the more depressing explanation would be that the maker herself is not aware of the fact that trees and the South stand for lynchings.
Also, the similarity between all the Mardi Gras Orders and the KKK is high. It doesn't require a lot of imagination that the KKK took symbols and rituals from these Orders. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many of these Orders had been highly instrumental in oppressing the African American people.
The end of the film is even more sinister. It is revealed that the grandfatherly man who is interviewed throughout the film is in fact the grandfather of the filmmaker. His last line is: "For what I am about to say, you have to stop recording" And indeed, the credits start rolling at that point. Now, in any other film this would have seemed a triumph of respect of privacy over the present day omnipresent eye of the camera. But in this case I imagined that he would tell her all sorts of horrible stuff that the Order of Myths used to do.
In closing, I am reasonably sure that the filmmaker was trying for a balanced view and she might have achieved that, within her capabilities. Insofar as anyone can be impartial, she might have come closest. She seems to be best embodied by the Prodigal Liberal daughter, who returns to embrace her deeply conservative "heritage".
However, it's ultimately a quite depressing film and subject, since all the white people are a.) insisting that they don't wanna change anything and b. are saying that black people WANT to be segregated themselves. We never hear the black people say that, actually. And c.) the black people don't seem very confident in their ability to change things, and seemed to have completely settled in their subservient role.
Definitely a case of "Even Obama can not", in the sense that even an Obama-presidency won't change this in any, any way.