Sunday, April 1, 2018

Born in Flames (1983)

  This is supposed to fall under "African American Sci-Fi" in my film class but I didn't see a lot of sci-fi elements.  If anything, it would be alternate future which I wouldn't classify the same way.  But maybe I'm just nit-picking.

This is a very low-budget indie film and it was relatively hard for me to find.  I ended up going to a site called Kanopy that has a ton of documentaries, Criterion Collection films, and just generally hard-to-find, obscure films.  Unfortunately, you have to have some kind of university or school credentials to access it so that sucks.  If you can find this film through other means, give it a shot.

After the installation of a socialist government in the United States, a counter-revolution begins to address the widespread violence and discrimination against women, LGBT individuals, and other minority groups that persists.  Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) becomes the unofficial leader of the Women's Army.  The film tracks her progress from community organizer to revolutionary to martyr and figurehead as she challenges the institutions of power.

I'm going to be honest:  at times, I forgot I wasn't watching a documentary.  It's that grainy, low-fi video that gets me.  It's an alarmingly prescient film with regards to the Women's Movement in 2017 and the push for more intersectionality and greater representation in all modes of life.  The installation of a full-out socialist government is a holdover nightmare from the Cold War but it gets brought up by foam-flecked pundits often enough that it could also be a contemporary bugbear.

The Amazon reviews were extremely polarized down gender lines so clearly this is capable of striking a lot of nerves.  I liked it and I think the time is ripe for a reissue.  Let's get it out of obscurity and back into the light of public knowledge.

No comments:

Post a Comment