Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to turn his trial into a political debate. They tried and succeeded in catching America’s attention.
Agnès Varda's short documentary captures a pivotal moment in American civil rights history with her distinctively humanist and observational eye. The cinematography is immediate and alive, placing the viewer inside the Oakland rallies with remarkable intimacy. Its novelty is high: a French New Wave director bringing a European art-cinema sensibility to Black Power activism produces a genuinely singular document. The 'plot' is loosely structured as documentary coverage, earnest but episodic, and the ending resolves naturally rather than dramatically. Acting is not applicable in a traditional sense but the real subjects carry authentic presence.