“We Shall Overcome” was written by someone sometime in the 1900’s.  It has been sung as a protest against the oppression of any group in society: divisions of race, religion, language …

The song brings people together.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid, today
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

***

I saw a marvelous movie a few days ago, directed by India Donaldson.   Good One shows the young speaking truth to power to the old, and the perils of relationship.  The story and the characters were real.

I read several reviews of the film, and one stood out.  Let’s just say I’m not going for coffee with the author anytime soon.

[Donaldson’s] debut length feature is, at its core, a character study that is interested in an immersive contemplative experience through the eyes of someone whose sensitivity might not be shared, not because of differences in what constitutes moral values, but because of a displacement in presumptions.  By reason of the object of perception not being equally perceived, different readings of it are born.  A decisive event in the movie articulates this difference in interpellation and renders what came before, our being with these characters and making our own assumptions after the time spent, something needing to be recontextualized.

It would be tempting to see in Good One anything but a reproduction of ideological discourses where the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn, and by doing so, something that voids reality from its complexities.  Nonetheless, its non-judgmental approach is more interested in exposition than it is in lecturing.  This is a story grounded in believable events and as such, said line could not be further from being drawn no matter how questionable some remarks might be interpreted.

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Simple … Complex

Reaching Me … Not Doing So