steve jaros
Supporting Actor
I've always been fascinated by the social turbulence of the mid-1960s to early-1970s, because while I was alive during that time, I was too young to have experienced it. All I have are a few scattered childhood memories of my parents saying something about stuff like "Vietnam" or "Watergate" around the dinner table and not knowing what they were talking about.
So a documentary about the Black Panther Party is in my wheelhouse, and director Stanley Nelson Jr. doesn't disappoint. This film is fascinating. While the film-making is technically pedestrian, the subject is so compelling that it never gets old even over an hour and 52 minutes. Nelson combines archival footage and present-day interviews with aging ex-Black Panthers to capture a sense of time and place, when a striving for "black liberation" was in the air among black people impatient with the non-violent methods of Martin Luther King, and profound debates occurred over the paths, peaceful or violent, that should be taken to get there. The filmmaker clearly has sympathy for the Panthers' root purpose of uplifting black people in America, but isn't shy about exposing and depicting the tactical and strategic flaws in its program and leadership that lead to its demise, while also taking a critical look at governmental overreaction and constitutional violations in combating the BPP.
And despite fading out more than 40 years ago, some aspects of the BPP agenda still resonate. The Panthers were initially motivated to arm themselves by the perceived need to protect against police brutality in black neighborhoods, and so the past year's conflict between police and black communities in places like Ferguson, Missouri and right now in Baltimore make the BPP's aspirations, and thus the film's themes, timely and relevant. And then as now, we see celebrities, black and white, lining up to support the cause but also catch a little "radical chic" shine from associating with that cause.
I saw this film at the Louisiana International Film Festival in Baton Rouge, so you might be able to see it at festivals in your city. Well worth it.
7 1/2 stars.
So a documentary about the Black Panther Party is in my wheelhouse, and director Stanley Nelson Jr. doesn't disappoint. This film is fascinating. While the film-making is technically pedestrian, the subject is so compelling that it never gets old even over an hour and 52 minutes. Nelson combines archival footage and present-day interviews with aging ex-Black Panthers to capture a sense of time and place, when a striving for "black liberation" was in the air among black people impatient with the non-violent methods of Martin Luther King, and profound debates occurred over the paths, peaceful or violent, that should be taken to get there. The filmmaker clearly has sympathy for the Panthers' root purpose of uplifting black people in America, but isn't shy about exposing and depicting the tactical and strategic flaws in its program and leadership that lead to its demise, while also taking a critical look at governmental overreaction and constitutional violations in combating the BPP.
And despite fading out more than 40 years ago, some aspects of the BPP agenda still resonate. The Panthers were initially motivated to arm themselves by the perceived need to protect against police brutality in black neighborhoods, and so the past year's conflict between police and black communities in places like Ferguson, Missouri and right now in Baltimore make the BPP's aspirations, and thus the film's themes, timely and relevant. And then as now, we see celebrities, black and white, lining up to support the cause but also catch a little "radical chic" shine from associating with that cause.
I saw this film at the Louisiana International Film Festival in Baton Rouge, so you might be able to see it at festivals in your city. Well worth it.
7 1/2 stars.
