Year: 2017
Director: Katherine Bigelow
Country: US
Language: English
Katherine Bigelow became the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker in 2010. A couple of years later she would be the subject of controversy when Zero Dark Thirty was accused of endorsing torture. Detroit has also created some controversy, as it revisits an unforgettable incident during the 1967 Detroit Rebellion.
A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest RACE riots in United States history. The story is centred around the Algiers Motel incident, which occurred in Detroit, Michigan on July 25, 1967, during the racially charged 12th Street Riot. It involves the death of three black men and the brutal beatings of nine other people.
Detroit opens with a painterly animated sequence detailing the Great Migration in 1916, followed by the segregation and oppression of black citizens within the city limits of Detroit. Interspersed with clips of documentary footage from the actual events, the film proceeds using a formal style of handheld cameras and outlying perspectives, giving the audience a sense of being there, looking on from a distance.
Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd lends a documentarian’s eye to the drama, using vintage lenses to capture multi-angle digital footage which is seamlessly interwoven with the archival material. Detroit is an intense visceral film that, mainly due to the editing by William Goldenberg, feels violent to a shocking degree. While it's arguable how much of the picture is entirely accurate regarding the events Bigelow will make you feel angry at the injustice presented onscreen.
Detroit is a hard film to sit through, but perhaps it is an essential watch in order to attempt to understand the deep-rooted racism in the United States. It might not be the most intelligent film about institutionalized racism, but it's certainly a hard picture to forget.
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