I Am Not Your Negro

Parental Rating: PG-13

Contains: Language    Nudity    Adult Content    

Jill's Review

Opens February 3, 2017

Runs 93 minutes

This film is nominated for Best Documentary for this year's Oscars. It is based on an unfinished novel by James Baldwin about historical race relations in America. His hope was to write about three of his civil rights heroes: Malcolm X, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. They were all killed within five years of each other. Documentarian Raoul Peck makes the movie he felt that James Baldwin would have envisioned. Using voice over from the actual completed pages, startling images and even actual interviews with James Baldwin, Peck tells the story that Baldwin never completed.

This feels like an important film. The imagery is sometimes shocking and embarrassing. It lays out a historical perspective of important points in the white/black conflict that has affected America. There are  pictures of lynchings and video of school integration. There are also current photos and video of Black Lives Matter marches. The film is interesting but it is rather slow and not a straight story. I was hoping that I would like it better but I didn't really. Not bad just not really my kind of documentary.

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