Movies Reviews

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Sep 8, 2011, 16:07 GMT

Footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States is edited together by a contemporary Swedish filmmaker. ...more

Narrow in its scope, but exquisitely produced, this gem records the most controversial narratives of the 20th century.

The 1967 to 1975 American Black Power movement did not have many advocates. The members of the movement had ambivalent attitudes towards most whites and out right homicidal positions against some others. However, the movement had a cadre of adherents that they never suspected. This group was made up of hard-core TV documentary video journalists from Sweden. Go figure.

Most citizens of the USA remember Viet Nam War era Sweden as the place Americans fled to when they refused to be drafted to serve in the war. Unbeknownst to us, there were almost as many journalists coming here to film the riotous period as there were US citizens going there to escape, or denounce, the war. The result is a huge stockpile of video footage of the Black Power movement, among other things.

When filmmaker Göran Olsson discovered this treasure trove of archival footage, he realized the time had come to revisit those painful and beautiful times. He discussed the idea with eventual co-producer Danny Glover and a movie was born.

This film features incredibly crisp and well-produced audio/video footage of Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale and other legendary figures of the Movement. The film takes its time with these folks, allowing them to expand and explain their perspective on the place of the black person in 1960s and 1970s America. The result is some of the most revealing political narrative ever produced.

This period came immediately after Dr. Martin Luther King opened the floodgates to true racial equality with his non-violent civil rights protests in the Southern states of the USA. Yet, the time was before blacks achieved anywhere near the power, knowledge and financial assets they have today. The vital piece of the puzzle is that they were being denied full equality, or at least equality was only being granted at huge expense, while at the same time forming a huge part of the Viet Nam War military head count.

Therefore, it became possible to attack the war on two fronts. The first was the outright hopelessness and criminality of the war and the second was the de facto pitting of one race of color against another. This was powerful stuff and the voices of Davis, Seale, Carmichael and others like them still echo today. These people were prosecuted, imprisoned and killed for what they said.

It was the marginalization of the speakers that allowed the Swedish film crews near perfect access. The lighting, resolution and audio reproduction and nearly perfect. Every word and every expression is captured completely. The extensive interviews of Angela Davis in prison have to be the best collection seen on screen in years, possibly the best collection ever shown.

Unfortunately, the film lags a bit for the last twenty minutes or so. The filmmakers need to transition to the present day, or, at least, close to it, to avoid the movie being nothing more than a trip down memory lane. Thus the rocking 1970’s are left behind along with the remains of the Viet Nam War. The film fizzles as it attempts to bring the subsequent rhetoric about ghetto drug control up to the level of the impassioned pleas of the Viet Nam era.

The sound track by Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas provides a vibrant resonance with the heartfelt messages in the movie. Perhaps it is nostalgia for many of the post-war baby boomers (that is post WWII, not post Viet Nam) but it was still a time of passion that we have not seen since Tricky Dick was run out of office and the first of the republican clown parade, Gerald Ford, took his place and fight the battle to make America safe for mediocrity.

If nothing else, perhaps this film will teach the youth of today what it is to care about something and speak about it as if it were a matter of life or death, as it may well be.

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Documentary
Directed and Written by: Göran Olsson
Featuring: Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and Bobby Seale 
Release Date: September 9, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: Sweden
Language: English
Color: Color