Friday, 16 January 2015

A real survivor

Within Our Gates (1920)

Written and directed by Oscar Micheaux this film stars Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin and Jack Chenault. We follow an Africa-American woman over her tribulations of love and prejudice.

You can easily see this film as an African-American response to The Birth of a Nation (1915) and it does a great job of showing the hardships faces in America of that time. The plot shows a variety of African-American characters and how they try to cope with the situation they face as well as the different attitudes between Northern and Southern whites. For a film made with so few resources the film is really well made and it never looks away from the harsh realities of racism.


4/5

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