Selma

Ava DuVernay, 2014, USA, Colour, 128 mins, Certificate: 12

October is Black History Month in the UK. It is also the month just before the November 3rd elections in the US, playing out during a pandemic, in one of the most turbulent, “angry”, regressive, abusive and violent years humanity has ever experienced.

In the US especially, things seem particularly grim and worrisome. The death (and possible replacement by the current president) of the Notorious RBG, aka legendary liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could tilt the Supreme Court further to the right. An outcome that seriously threatens some of peoples’ of colour, women’s and  LGBTQ+ community’s hard won, rights and freedoms, for generations to come.

How else could we respond to all these but with a black films double bill, the fi(r)st being “Selma”, directed by a talented, black, and proud, American woman, the dauntless Ava DuVernay (“When They See Us”), and produced by the emblematic Oprah Winfrey. It tells the true story of the campaign Dr Martin Luther King Jr launched in the Southern State of Alabama, in 1965 to secure equal voting rights. The epic, fearless march in the streets of Selma that took place as a strategic part of it, laid bare for all to see the angry, senseless, violence opposition it faced by the white establishment and culminated in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It is an inspirational film that stars the magnificent David Oyelowo as the man and not the saint, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and won the Oscar for Best Original Song (“Glory” by Common and John Legend), while it was also nominated for Best Picture. It will make you cry, and it will make you angry, but in the end, it will make you laugh triumphantly, full of hope. Hope that change for the better is inevitable. Even if it takes a long, brave step forward in the face of two cowardly steps back.

Reviews:

★★★★★ “Ava DuVernay’s film thrillingly contrasts the moral triumph of King’s crusade for civil rights with the agony of his marital infidelities ” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Intelligently written, vividly shot, tightly edited, sharply acted, the film represents a rare example of craftsmanship working to produce a deeply moving piece of history. ” Stephen Ferber, The Hollywood Reporter

“DuVernay’s razor-sharp portrait of the Civil Rights movement — and Dr. King himself — at a critical crossroads is as politically astute as it is psychologically acute, giving us a human-scale King whose indomitable public face belies currents of weariness and self-doubt.” Scott Foundas, Variety

★★★★ “With “Selma,” director Ava DuVernay has created a stirring, often thrilling, uncannily timely drama that works on several levels at once… [But she] has also rescued King from his role as a worshiped — and sentimentalized — secular saint. Here, she presents him as a dynamic figure of human-scale contradictions, flaws and supremely shrewd political skills.” Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

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