Film review: “A Conversation About Race”
It’s not often that you see a documentary about your own society that makes you squirm a little bit…without any sex or violence. And that’s especially true when you agree with the filmmaker’s viewpoint.
But the subject of racism in America has become so taboo, so powerfully charged, that any discussion of it in an open, honest, way is both refreshing and disturbing.
And so it is with Craig Bodeker’s new hour-long documentary, “A Conversation About Race”, in which Mr. Bodeker discusses issues of race with Americans (Denverites, to be specific) who believe they see or face racism in their everyday lives.
Mr. Bodeker’s views on the issue are clear, just from his having the courage to take up the issue and ask the questions he asks. And it’s about time that someone with these views makes a public statement, such as with this film, that “racism” in today’s America, to the extent that it still exists at all in a nation which just elected Barack Obama, is not even a shadow of the true racism of former generations.
Bodeker interviews “some of racisms believers, (to) look for inconsistencies” whom he found either by posting a CraigsList ad to “stop racism now” or by interviewing random people on the streets of Denver. He didn’t have to go far to find either the volunteers or the gaping logical and experiential holes in their beliefs.
[Linked below is a trailer for the film really doesn’t do it justice, but you can at least get a sense of the movie’s style.]
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