Native Land

When Paul Robeson returned to the U.S. after spending the previous 12 years in England, this was the first film here he was involved in which he narrates about the plight of various union workers being oppressed-and even killed-for speaking up. This film-directed by Paul Strand & Leo Hurwitz-is a mixture of reenactments and actual documentary footage about certain events. Compelling score by Marc Blitzstein and Robeson gives his narration some feeling. Some scenes may shock in the way many deaths occur. The tone veers back-and-forth between despair and inspiration but there always seem some purpose to what is happening and depicted. So on that note, I recommend Native Land. P.S. The disc I saw this on was part of the Paul Robeson collection and had a nice extra called "The Story of Native Land" which has Tom Hurwitz-son of co-director Leo-recount how it came to be.