Black and white disparity--again and forever it seems--in Chris Haley and Brad J. Bennett's short doc, UNMARKED

Here's a subject linked to systemic racism, like so many others coming to the fore of late, that my readers may not even have considered -- unless you happen to be Black, especially from the South but also, unfortunately, from the supposedly woke-earlier-North of these United States. That subject would be burial, and the treatment of that burial as something worth honoring and remembering. 

As the new documentary UNMARKED shows us, there are hundreds of slave cemeteries -- until now allowed  to disappear or slip into total disrepair -- seemingly unknown yet almost in plain view that dot our southern states, particularly in the area of Virginia, where this documentary takes place.

As directed by Chris Haley (shown at right) and Brad J. Bennett (below), the documentary is actually a short film which started out, according to its IMDB page, as only 27 minutes in length, now grown to 40 minutes. And yet, the subject itself calls for full-length treatment.

Perhaps because the venue is confined (probably by both the budget the location of the filmmakers to the state of Virginia), the ability to reach out nationwide was limited. And so we remain in and around that state, as these new/old graveyards are rediscovered and 

reinvigorated from the confines of the natural world that has grown around them and covered them.

Catch as catch can, we meet some of the folk who are helping unearth and then maintain these graveyards, and we watch them work and see how they manage all this. 

It's interesting, important, and -- when at one point we view the pristine and beautifully-tended Confederate cemetery in the area of Richmond, VA -- fucking enraging to compare this to the separate-but-unequal "disappeared" cemetery of the slaves.

Most of the documentary will not and is not meant to be enraging because it is clear that the folk working to regain these burial grounds and turn them into something that honors, records and remembers the dead want to do this as peaceably as possible.

This means using the help of mostly volunteers but also politicians and local institutions -- educational and otherwise -- in ways that might finally bring us together, at least somewhat.

So we watch as these volunteers, using only their bare hands against the under- and over-growth, discover more tombstones in more locations. One woman speaks movingly of finally traveling the road from shame to pride regarding the history of slavery, while another remarks on how important it is to possess "authentic history," rather than merely history (or the kind of revisionist history that would have us believe that so many of the slaves were such happy people, really.). 

If the doc jumps around into subjects barely covered, and even includes an apocryphal-sounding tale of a sad "Cinderella" love story, its heart is clearly in the right place. Let's hope that a full-length documentary may someday arrive covering more of the totality and history of these unmarked graves. Meanwhile, this short film will fill you in as a decent introduction.

From First Run Features and lasting but 40 minutes, Unmarked arrived on DVD and digital streaming this past Tuesday, April 27 -- for purchase and/or rental. Click here for further information.

Heat waves -- and whom they affect -- in Judith Helfand's history/documentary, COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE

The film begins with a "natural" disaster -- the summer-of-1995 heat wave that hit Chicago and killed hundreds of people -- and then quickly moves to make us understand how the particular choice (and, yes, it was a long-gestating choice) of exactly which people would die was anything but "natural." 

Adapted from the book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by sociologist and urban studies author Eric Klinenberg (shown at left).  COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE tackles not just heat waves, hurricanes, and other natural disasters but why these always seem to first kill folk from low-income, non-white neighborhoods, along with why "disaster preparedness" seminars and demonstrations prepare mostly wealthy white enclaves for survival. 

As directed by Peabody award-winner Judith Helfand (shown at right), Cooked brings to screen life Klinenberg's hugely important book. with interviews with both the citizens who suffered through these traumatic events and some of the policy-makers and folk in charge of the  supposed survival mechanisms in place to protect us all. It is not a pretty picture.

One of the great strengths of ths film is how Klinenberg and Helfand use history and statistics (from as far back as the early 1940s) to show us how injustices such as redlining prevented non-white citizens from obtaining bank loans and thus owning real estate, as did their white brethren.

Cooked was filmed prior to our current pandemic and prior to the death of George Floyd (and so many others) that seem now to have at least somewhat broadened the understanding and changed the attitude of a larger portion of America's white population. Still, to see and hear Helfand asking direct questions of these in-charge men and women, and to see how her interviewees pause, look away, and either make excuses or practically outright say,"Well, yes, but good luck with trying to change any of this," is alternately shocking and deadening. 

Perhaps now, with all that has happened in and to our country over the past year, we might be able to look forward to actual change finally arriving. Meanwhile, we have all the evidence we need of its urgency and importance. Early on in the film, I think it was Klinenberg who points out how so much of how we live and what we are allowed to see and understand has kept the entitled portion of our population "protected and blissfully ignorant."

By the finale of this very important documentary, I suspect you will completely agree with Ms Helfand when she notes "how deeply flawed and immoral our national priorities are."  Cooked, however, is not simply a litany of the horrors. 

Toward the finale, we're on  a food truck bringing fresh produce into a neighborhood  without any proper venues for healthy food shopping. An older teenage boy comes aboard the bus and is cajoled into eating -- for the first time in his life, he tells us -- a raw apple. He finally does, and... gosh, it's pretty tasty! This scene is so unusual, so moving, and actually almost shocking that you may ask yourself, When did you eat your first apple? Can you imagine not having even the opportunity to actually eat one until you were very nearly a young adult? Probably not. But now you'll consider what this might feel like. And if you have any further doubts, as does Lindsey Graham, about the systemic racism plaguing our country, maybe it's time to simply resign from the Senate -- or the human race. 

From Bullfrog Films, distributed by Icarus Films and available on DVD in two different versions: an 82-minute version with SDH English captions and a 54-minute PBS version with SDH English captions (I watched the 82-minute version, which I would thoroughly recommend), Cooked can be purchased (and I hope, rented, too) now. Click here for more information.

Jeanine Meerapfel's MY GERMAN FRIEND: See an excellent, undiscovered film from 2012

It is possible that, despite the current pandemic's making the making of movies more difficult, the flip side of this is that a number of older films, earlier passed over for any kind of international distribution, are now getting their chance to shine -- even if tardily. On the basis of how intelligent, unusually put together, and ever-timely is the newly released movie titled MY GERMAN FRIEND, I would say that, as is often the case when bad things happen, there can be an occasional surprising and worthwhile upside.

Written and directed by Jeanine Meerapfel (shown at left), the movie tracks, beginning in the 1950s, the hugely changing relationship between childhood friends who live just across the street from each other: Friedrich Burg, the son of German Nazis relocated post-war to Argentina, and Sulamit Löwenstein, daughter of well-to-do Jews fleeing Europe for Argentina to escape the Holocaust. 

We're with Sulamit and Friedrich as young children, adolescents, older students and finally adults (Celeste Cid, below, right, and Max Riemelt, below, left). The two have loved and cared for each other all along the way, and yet their paths toward adulthood -- including career, philosophy, priorities -- could hardly have been more different. 

By refusing to take sides but instead showing us how each of her protagonists thinks and feels and thus why they behave in the ways they do, Ms Meerapfel is able to give us a wonderfully expansive and very real love story, without for a change slighting the necessary themes -- politics, protest, history, economics, education, rebellion (and its consequences), even feminism -- that should figure (but so seldom do) into any genuine love story. (Think of this one as The Way We Were, but set in Argentina and Germany, and without all the soap suds.)

The film begins on a train as Sulamit makes her way toward... something, though we don't yet know what. We only learn this as the movie is more than halfway along, as the present moves to the past, catches up again, and plows onward. 

My German Friend is indeed a love story, but it is one that offers so much more than simple romance, a little lust and some feel-good filler. It shows us different forms of love and how help and support figure into all this. 

And if the filmmaker will win no awards for style and/or breaking new ground, she should win a few for showing us life's broader perspective that include what is going on in our world politically, economically, culturally, and freedom/repression-wise. 

By the time of Meerapfel's lovely conclusion -- in which anything simple-minded or obvious has no role -- we are made to realize that love is in ongoing thing in which small battles must be fought, won or allowed to be lost in order to keep the relationship healthy. This movie is a small-but-genuine "find."

From Corinth Films -- which has been giving us a lot of lesser-known but very-much-worth-viewing attractions -- in German and Spanish (with English subtitles) and running 104 minutes, My German Friend hit DVD and streaming earlier this week -- for purchase and/or rental. Amazon Prime members can watch it free of charge.

Paris as a haven for American Blacks: Alan Govenar's MYTH OF A COLORBLIND FRANCE

The not-so-aptly titled documentary MYTH OF A COLORBLIND FRANCE -- which makes this storied country of hoped-for Liberté, égalité, fraternité seem more negative than it is (or at least was) -- actually offers viewers the opportunity to discover or maybe remind themselves of just how welcoming France became for African-Americans starting with World War I and continuing very nearly through present-day rise of nasty white nationalism in far too many countries worldwide, including the USA (which hardly needs more of this shit).  No country is really colorblind unless its populace is actually blind, a condition that maybe exists in an old Star Trek episode or a nice aphorism ("In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"). Racism might exist everywhere, one speaker points out, "but in France, I could do something about it."

As co-writer (with Jason Johnson-Spinos) and director of this fine new documentary, Alan Govenar (The Beat Hotel, You Don't Need Feet to Dance), shown at right, offers us viewers a wonderful and rich contribution to the history of African-American culture and the part that France (well, mostly Paris) played in all this.

While the filmmaker hits the expected high points -- Josephine Baker (below), James Baldwin (further below), Richard Wright -- he also includes a lot more examples of lesser lights whose interesting stories and thoughtful musings add much to this history of Black ex-pats in Paris. 

And, yes, as certain reviews have pointed out, the documentary jumps all over the place, back and forth from person to person, time period to time period. Yet what it has to tell us is so worth hearing (and seeing) that TrustMovies certainly did not mind these travels. 

My least favorite sections are given to some music-and-poetry improvisations that seemed to me a bit puerile, yet whenever that poet speaks of his experiences and philosophy, the movie immediately gets back on track. (That's poet James Emanuel, left, with saxophonist Chansse Evans, below.) 

We learn about everyone from famous 19th Century playwright Victor Séjour to jazz musician Sidney Bechet, the famous Bricktop club, mystery writer Chester Himes and especially the still-going-strong sculptor/poet/novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud (below), whose novel Sally Hemings became a kind of touchstone for the continuing American hypocrisy regarding slavery and its history. 

Of special note (among a lot that's already pretty special) is famous subway graffiti artist known as Quik (below), who tells us of his first trip to Europe and what happened on his first morning out and about in (I think it was) Amsterdam. 

Even if there is information you will already have known present in the documentary, much of this is well worth recalling, and what and who you will not have known about should make the film a must-see for anyone interested in Paris, history, and Black lives and culture -- then and now.

From First Run Features and running 86 minutes, Myth of a Colorblnd France opened this weekend in virtual theaters across the country.  Click here to see where and how you can view the film.

DVDebut for Nanni Moretti's fine new documentary, SANTIAGO, ITALIA

Really? Something good came out of the horrific Pinochet dictatorship that ravaged the country of Chile during the 1970s and 80s? God knows, all this has been covered and re-covered in countless documentaries and narratives in the decades since then. Yet the new and ever-so-welcome SANTIAGO, ITALIA by the popular Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti offers something surprisingly positive, along with information and a situation that TrustMovies knew nothing of until viewing this gripping and moving new documentary. 

Not that Signore Moretti (shown at left) leaves out the bad stuff. No: His interviews with Chilean citizens who were imprisoned and tortured by the military at the time still horrify and disgust, as do those with former members of the military forever trying to justify and/or sleaze out of their actions back in the day. 

But the heart of this fairly brief documentary details how the Italian Embassy in Chile at the time of the coup and after managed to help rescue, then house and eventually ship safely off to Italy several hundred Chilean dissidents. As we hear from these Chilean-Italians, their stories of the time of Salvador Allende and his and Democracy's death in Chile become a kind of mosaic, of things we knew and plenty we didn't, about how various embassies (there were other good guys, in addition to Italy) helped those being persecuted by the new dictatorship.

Filled with archival footage (above and below) that shows us Allende (above, center) and the time period, and then fills in the history via interviews with Chileans in numerous walks of life -- factory workers to musicians, journalists, artists and filmmakers (Patricio Guzmán is one of these) -- the documentary works its way up to the good news about how many of these people were saved.

Early on, one woman recalls how Chile under Allende "was a whole country, a whole society in a state of love." Except it wasn't, of course. Allende was faced with two choices, one interviewee explains: Strike while the iron is hot and nationalize industry or try to placate the bourgeoisie. He chose the former, more progressive model (unlike America's centrist Democratic Party that keep us moving toward the wealthy, powerful and corporate). Although democratically elected, Allende and his socialist policies were hated by many right-wing bourgeois and upper-class Chileans, so with the help of America, the military coup took place. 

All of this has been told and seen many times over. What Moretti brings new to the table is the tale of that Italian Embassy (above) and its good work. His movie is so full of solid, smart information that attention must be paid throughout. The payoff is worth it, for his interviews are often exciting, funny and very moving. My favorite is the story of a grandmother who must toss her baby grandchild over the wall of the embassy and what subsequently occurred. 

What happened to the "saved" Chileans, how they got to Italy, found employment (and much else, too) and, though hoping to return eventually to their homeland, finally settled in Italy is simply a marvelous, engaging story. But, as encouraging and hopeful as the documentary often is (as are most of Moretti's movies), this one ends on a realistic, near-negative note. We can only hope that Chile, Italy, and -- hello -- the USA, too, will take a different course before the opportunity for change runs out.

From Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films US, Santiago, Italia, in Spanish and Italian with English subtitles and running 84 minutes, hit the street this past week and is available now on DVD (and eventually via streaming). It's a must-see for history buffs, lovers of Italy and/or Chile, and progressives of all countries.

August Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman HAMILTON: History Has Its Eyes on Us .…

This post is written by our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman  

"It was simply the best form of art of any kind 

that I have ever seen in my life." ...Michelle Obama

They were a bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists(*) 

And if you’re living on your knees you gotta rise up; 

Tell your brother tell your sister you gotta rise up; 

These colonies gotta rise up... time to take a shot. 

"Isn’t HAMILTON just a bunch of people of color telling white people’s story again?" A fan put that question to Leslie Odom Jr., Aaron Burr in the original cast. Odom said: The founders were locals disenfranchised, they had been shut out of their story...they protested. I have hope we can get that right. Daveed Diggs (Jefferson): We are watching the genesis of America. These historical figures are being embodied by a multiethnic cast...; [we assume] that the virtues of being American should be given to all Americans, right?...the show is an example of how to hold your country accountable. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton’s author and star (above), is an empathic, witty, librettist, composer, thinker, artist— hip hop’s Shakespeare. This rap/jazz/ballad cum revolution of his will stand longer than any other of our classics; it’s more — more fun, meaningful, important: He says: “it’s the story of America then told by America now; people of color…under attack from emboldened white supremacy, police brutality, and centuries of systemic anti-black racism; it’s up to us to...lay claim to the story of our origins. Our labor built America…..[the same] debates have been there since our founding..…’ 

The musical (2015) has already proved ageless — in harmony with today’s BLM (dubbed a racial reckoning by Mayor, Murial Bowser, WDC) and millennia of minority struggle. The latter was Miranda’s personal entree to the story. Hamilton (1757-1804) a brilliant orphan from the tiny island of Nevis, was the proto-immigrant (‘immigrants — we get the job done’) a journey Miranda’s father took in leaving Puerto Rico for New York. Boot-strapper Hamilton was the only immigrant founder; the others were professionals, slave owners. Hamilton rose through sheer perpetual motion and brilliance detailed in Ron Chernow’s biography.    

Above, Aaron Burr leads the cast in rapping Alexander’s bio: 

How does a bastard orphan dropped in the middle 

of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean, impoverished, in squalor, 

grow up to be a hero and a scholar? 

 The ten-dollar founding father without a father; 

got a lot farther by working a lot harder, 

by being a lot smarter; by being a self starter…  

Scamming for every book he could get his hands on... 

 now…[he’s] headed to New York...in New York you can be a new man. 

Above, Alexander raps 

‘Not throwing away My shot’: 

I’m a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal; 

I’m just like my country, young, scrappy and hot; 

I’m not throwing away my shot….. 

Burr, a wealthy aristocrat and lifelong competitor of Hamilton, was more opportunist than patriot. The two were friends turned vicious enemies; Hamilton’s rage was fueled by Burr’s lack of principles (‘You stand only for yourself’)—the Lindsay Graham of the 1700’s: ( ‘King George runs a spending spree; He ain't never gonna set us free. Why should a tiny nation across the sea tax our tea?) Hamilton connived with purpose for the revolution (‘I will lay down my life if it sets us free’). Their warring lasted till Burr stopped it with a bullet. (‘and me? I’m the damn fool that shot him.’) 

King George III (the pastiest white cast member, Jonathan Groff) minces on stage (above) doing his best sour grapes, spoiled Trump routine (Do authoritarians look alike?): 

When push comes to shove, I will send a fully armed battalion 

To remind you of my love...I will kill your friends and family 

To remind you of my love. I will love you til my dying days; 

When you’re gone I’ll go mad. Da da da dat da, dat da da da dai ah 

We witness the founding political fights in so precipitous an avalanche of rapped words/song that Hamilton’s story should take half a day not under three hours. There’s a poignant bit of Burr’s romantic life, Hamilton’s courtship of Eliza Schuyler (above, left, Philippa Soo), his bond with her beautiful, brilliant older sister Angelica (the exceptional Renée Elise Goldsberry) with whom he had a mind meld, the Maria Reynolds’ scam (below, Jasmine Cephas-Jones as the temptress involved in the first US political sex scandal), Washington’s refusal to claim a third term (beautiful-voiced Chris Jackson). Strung together with domestic detail, the story of war, Constitution, and founder conflict is eternal — noble, ignoble —Shakespearean. 

There’s plenty delight in song/story/dance here, but to follow the politicking, dense exposition, and history, having the words cc’d on your screen is fine help. So too the closeups that director Thomas Kail provides — Georgie’s spittle, the sweat, the grief, the camaraderie on faces, clever choreography, staging — the sticks and stones of 13 disparate colonies that matures brick by brick into a nation.

And it is half-remembered and such surprise that it was Hamilton who designed the structure that holds our states together, while Jefferson wrote down its principles and got more credit. We watch the sausage being made in ‘The room where it happened’ (John Bolton swiped the song title for his book) among the federalists who favored a federal bank, single currency, shared debt, vs southern states righters who insisted on slave economics.

Jefferson (above, the adorable, irresistible Mr. Diggs, who dandies Jeff up more than history did): 

Our debts are paid; don’t tax the south 

cause we got it made; we plant seeds in the ground...

You just want to move our money around. 

Hamilton: 

Thomas, welcome to the present we are running a real nation. 

Would you like to join or stay mellow 

doing whatever it is you do in Monticello? (shown below.) 

If we assume the debts, the union gets a new line of credit, 

a financial diuretic, how do you not get it? 

Hamilton, backed by Washington, defends his economic scheme in the new media of the 1700’s, printed pamphlets, known to us as the Federalist Papers— in 1788, the new constitution got approved with a stunning trade. Hamilton gets his bank and financial plan by giving up New York as capitol for the Potomac. Bless them, the plantationers gave ground on policy for a shorter commute. Now that was a deal Hamilton devised (below) to avoid the bad results of Europe’s warring states with a scheme to prevent the colonies from descending into fiefdoms. This was the era of Enlightenment and John Locke liberalism, with Hamilton a disciple of Locke’s monetary principles. (It is noteworthy that the young EU has only just instituted a similar scheme.) 

Hamilton was not rewarded in his lifetime. News of a sexual dalliance in the early 90’s, in which he was blackmailed by the unscrupulous Reynolds couple, was about to hit print at Burr’s instigation; it ruined his political career and almost his happy marriage; his outrage at Burr led to their duel and Hamilton’s death at 47. The public was shocked and Burr forever reviled. (‘I was the villain in your history’). Eliza Schuyler died 50 years later at 97, having championed her husband’s legacy and begun the first private orphanage in NYC (it provides family services today). Hamilton, the overlooked founder, may have been the greatest, “the technician behind [our] rise to economic, political, and martial greatness,” says historian Alexander Rose. 

Hamilton is now on film via Disney+.

NOTES: 

*1. History vs fact addressing some discrepancies.

2. History Channel: a documentary on the life of Hamilton filling in the blanks.

3. Hamilton: History Has Its Eyes On Us At Disney+; Robin Roberts led hour-long discussion with Miranda, cast members, his creative team, a noted historian, clips from the film, and children performing bits from Hamilton including a British teen chorus and a 3 year old singing George III. Worth it to see the kids. 

4. Eduham; created to disseminate materials for kids, teachers,grades 6-12, to reenact Hamilton/learn history.

5. Hamilton at the White House on YouTube.