Based on the 1967 Detroit race riot.
Why are there no posts about Detroit y’all hate Michigan
I’ve been enjoying NPR’s extensive coverage of the riots during the last couple of weeks. I honestly had never heard of this a month ago, and now thanks to the movie, I have. What’s funny in one of the NPR interviews, the young black star of the movie had never heard of this before either.
This was a difficult watch. The movie is excellent and I’m glad I watched it. But seeing what was happening to folks was really difficult.
I actively disliked it based on how difficult it was to watch. It’s just unrelenting, a non-stop display of humanity at its worst.
I don’t think I can judge it “objectively” as a movie (to the extent anyone ever can). I don’t really think there was much to single out for criticism. Performances were good, it didn’t feel exploitive, manipulative, or dishonest about anything (they even spell out at the end that this was written from an incomplete knowledge of the incident at the Algiers).
But there was also nearly no arc to things, and it was a movie with almost no hope. I’m glad they didn’t try to clean things up with any Hollywood resolution, but all that leaves you with is a horrifying portrayal of injustice, racism, violence, and the inhumanity we’re capable of.
I think it will depend a lot on the perspective you bring to the movie. I’ve never lived through anything like what happened in Detroit, but as an American I am familiar with what was happening. Sadly, I have the context—even at a privileged and safe remove—for what this looks like, and so the movie wasn’t exactly “illuminating” or surprising. Whereas something like The Act of Killing was also pretty horrific, but I was learning about something I didn’t have the context for, so I wanted to know more, even though what I was learning was awful and difficult to watch.
I’m not super happy with I’ve written here so far but it’s a hard movie to write about, so maybe this will at least start helping me better understand my own reactions.
If it’s the guy from the Star Wars movie isn’t he English? So there is no reason for him to know about every American race riot.
I wonder how many 40 and under Americans are aware of how violent the 60’s really were. There were many race riots in many cities during the 60-70s.
I read a story two weeks ago about how apparently this is one of the major “flops” of the season. I would imagine the subject matter may just hit a little to close to home in today’s world.