[Marxism] The Order of Myths (NYT movie review)

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Though I have not seen this movie, I'd like to.
Race and racism are so central to the life and
culture of this country, that any opportunity 
to learn more is always appreciated.)
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The Order of Myths

By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: July 25, 2008
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Thereâs nothing post-race about the closely orbiting worlds depicted in âThe
Order of Myths,â Margaret Brownâs wise and soberly affecting documentary
about the separate but unequal Mardi Gras festivities that take place each
year in Mobile, Ala. Though the cityâs Web site discreetly sidesteps the
issue, this Mardi Gras, the oldest in the country â probably inaugurated by
soused French settlers (Ã votre santÃ!) in 1703 â is almost entirely
segregated between the children of slave owners and the children of slaves,
whose celebrations, coronations, parades and pleasures are as divided as are
their views on race.

It takes a while for the fissures in the groups to show. Ms. Brown, a
relative newcomer to nonfiction (she has made one previous documentary
feature, âBe Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandtâ), approaches
her material with a measured calm, edging along its borders rather than
mounting a frontal attack. She opens with a nighttime image of a broken
column on a float â a figure dressed as Folly chases another dressed as
Death around the pillar â and an interview with a white Mobile resident,
Dwain Luce, explaining with mellifluous gentility that the column probably
represents the South. (You may recognize Mr. Luce as one of the veterans in
âThe War,â Ken Burnsâs documentary about World War II.)

Ms. Brown later returns to that broken column, which looks as if it had been
knocked from the portico of one of those plantations that remain a potent
symbol of the old, spooky South. By the time it resurfaces, Ms. Brown has
traveled into Mobileâs slave- trading past and taken the unquiet pulse of
its current race relations, going wide and surprisingly deep. With the aid
of a handful of essential Mardi Gras players â notably the 2007 white king
and queen and their equally engaged black counterparts â she has observed
the costume fittings, a wine tasting, some party toasting. Eschewing
voice-over or any obvious trace of an on-screen or off-screen presence, she
lets her images, a little text and other people do the talking for her. 
Her quiet has its own force.

The black queen and king â Stefannie Lucas and Joseph Roberson, both
schoolteachers â are cautious yet optimistic about their city and its racial
divide. They see change, glimmers of real progress, but they donât have the
luxury of naÃvetÃ. Most of the white revelers â including the queen and
king, Helen Meaher and Max Bruckmann â all of whom appear significantly
wealthier than the black participants, are either vaguely or keenly aware of
race. Mr. Bruckmann, a jovial type with the round face of a well-fed baby,
and Ms. Meaher, a willowy blonde whoâs all but swallowed up by her heavily
jeweled costume, are swaddled in privilege, tradition and culture. Itâs hard
not to notice that every hand that serves them is black.

Ms. Brown, who edited âThe Order of Mythâ with Michael Taylor and Geoffrey
Richman, catches such salient everyday details so artlessly that you may not
notice them at first. Shot in sharp, clear high-definition video by Michael
Simmonds, the movie seamlessly shifts between casual in situ interviews and
fly-on-the-wall visuals that often shed complicating light on what subjects
say when theyâre looking into a camera. In one scene Brittain Youngblood, a
coltish white debutante and self-described liberal, visits a kitchen during
an event and eagerly chats up an older black woman washing dishes. During
their brief conversation, the animated Ms. Youngblood keeps backing into an
area in which a second black worker is rushing back and forth trying to do
her job. Sorry, Ms. Youngblood says, sorry.

What makes this great documentary moment even better is that Ms. Brown
refuses to use it against Ms. Youngblood, whose acute political
self-consciousness hasnât rendered her any less entitled. More than most,
Ms. Brown knows that thereâs nothing black and white about race in America,
and nothing specifically Southern about its calamities. Or maybe sheâs just
more honest. The extent of her sincerity doesnât become apparent until late
in the proceedings, when she reveals a personal connection to Mobile that
gives this very fine movie a bracing emotional kicker. In contrast to the
cloistered, all-white Mardi Gras membership group (called a mystic society)
that gives the movie its poetic and freighted title, Ms. Brown has a
beautiful grasp of gray.

THE ORDER OF MYTHS

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Margaret Brown; director of photography, Michael Simmonds;
edited by Michael Taylor, Geoffrey Richman and Ms. Brown; produced by Ms.
Brown and Sara Alize Cross; released by the Cinema Guild. At the IFC Center,
323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running
time: 1 hour 20 minutes. This film is not rated.


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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
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