[ad_1]
C
throw
Taraji P. Henson, Sam Rockwell, Babou Ceesay, Anne Heche, Bruce McGill, Nick Bentley, Nick Searcy
Availability
Choose theaters on April 5th
The best of enemies, an adaptation of Osha Gray Davidson's documentary about the improbable friendship of activist Ann Atwater of Durham, North Carolina, and of C. P., from Klansman who became a union organizer. Ellis, do not waste time telling us where his two main characters are supposed to come from. We are in 1971 and Atwater (Taraji P. Henson), a single mother and a staunch defender of the city's poor black tenants (with a locker of white politicians on the back of the head), trying to reach the city from Durham. advice to act against a slum lord who does not even want to show himself. On the outskirts of town, Ellis (Sam Rockwell) chairs a meeting of the KKK City Chapter as an "Exalted Cyclops" before cramming into a car with some of his most worthy redneck associates of confidence to slowly photograph the porch of a local "Blue Bayou" wife of Roy Orbison (at least, he makes sure that she is upstairs before opening fire.) these two supposed to hear? And maybe as important: why should they?
Considering the long history of the sympathetic home cinema of racist characters (and the role of mythical of lost cause and Klan), a viewer might have good reason to roll his eyes. The best of enemies. Although Atwater and Ellis initially get the same time on screen, the real center of the film is the incredible and comforting conversion of the latter from white supremacist tinged in wool to a true proponent of integration and rights civilians. To put it mildly in the last presidential election, he has the face of "economic anxiety": a family man, a small business owner and a relentless people trying to make ends meet by trying to to make ends meet wife (Anne Heche), who seems less enthusiastic about her husband's inflammatory social club. His youngest is late to school and he has to look after a son with Down syndrome, but his gas station barely pays the bills. (In part, the film suggests, because it refuses to pump gasoline for black motorists.)
The extended moment of Ellis Road to Damascus takes the form of a cart, a two-week structured public forum, hosted by a city scholar, Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay), to settle the question of school integration in Durham. Riddick chooses Atwater and Ellis, co-chairs of the "senate" cart, who have often clashed at city council meetings. This committee is composed of the President of the White Citizens & Council (the most respectable, white cotton jumpsuit for the sweaty work shirt KKK) and a representative of the city's small black elite, educated at the university. , that Ellis and Atwater seem to feel pretty much the same way, plus an equal number of people less politicized black and white Durhamites selected by draw. White members include a nurse, a misanthropic gravedigger, and a veteran from Vietnam who runs a local hardware store; black members, the film hardly even to identify. Along with the duplicate city councilor (Bruce McGill), who wants Ellis to hold the white vote for the status quo, The best of enemies considers that their opinions are run in advance and do not deserve to be examined.
This imbalance is visible. the film lasts more than two hours and devotes a disproportionate amount of time to a large cast of auxiliary white characters, while offering a glimpse of Atwater's family life that contrasts with the attention he gives to domestic and financial struggles Ellises and weekly Klan minutes. (For example, we have no idea what Atwater does for a living.) The gradual descent into a pity party sucks the energy of the shock of the irascible personalities that drives the first parts of the film, with Henson and Rockwell both upstairs. as an actor, mimicking various back problems while their characters strut and scowl. Robin Bissell, author and director for the first time, strives to keep the camera out; In terms of creative personality, it is expressed at most in two confusing sequences associated with songs ("Queen Bitch", "Hurdy Gurdy Man") that have been used more memorable in much better films.
In the beginning, Ellis and Atwater can not see each other anymore, but soon they find themselves sharing an office and, later, a table for lunch. They learn to compromise: If the black citizens of Durham want to close each of the long sessions of the cart with an evangelical chant, the Ellis cohorts should be allowed to set up a display with klan literature at the entrance of the junior high where the sessions are held. It's a slow process, but ultimately, racism is resolved.
Of course, that did not really happen that way. The cart itself was organized by the AFL-CIO (not mentioned in the film), and Ellis' conversion was more related to his growing awareness of how the workers (and the resentments) racists of the poor whites) were exploited by companies and political organizations. Power. "When it comes to money, green and other colors make no difference," he told Studs Terkel, the divisive divider of leftist interviewers and dean of American oral history, who considered Ellis as one of his favorite subjects. Although he ran a gas station in 1971, he worked as a janitor at Duke University. And the Durham schools were already beginning to integrate; In fact, the children of Ellis and Atwater attended the same high school.
Most of the films presented as "true story-based" quickly defy events and motivations – especially, it seems, when racism is involved. But Bissell's falsification of facts (including complete information about the reasons for the cart) does not create a more insightful or coherent story than reality; the only thing it reveals, even indirectly, is the long-standing discomfort of liberalism over the relationship between human rights and labor movements. But at a time when smaller distributors are struggling to find a way to put the buttocks in the multiplex, manufacturers of The best of enemies It would have been wise to take inspiration from William Castle, king of the mid-twentieth century schlock, who had associated electric warnings to the seats of the movie theater for a movie entitled The tingler: Sell premium tickets and install a device that will tease viewers at the right time.
[ad_2]
Source link