Detroit and depressed

So last night I watched Detroit; a film just as depressing as Goodbye Aleppo, though in very different ways. The film is very different: almost two and a half hours long, shot by a world-famous Oscar-winning Director, and with a global release (Goodybe Aleppo was an hour, shot by citizen journalists and only shown on BBC in that region).

The topic was entirely different, yet the film was also a true story (at least as much as anyone can work out without all of the facts). It wasn't shot in real-time, but was a reconstruction of events but it was just as depressing as Goodbye Aleppo. Showing the race riots in Detroit of fifty years ago, it focused on a particular incident where some white racist copes violently interrogated (i.e. abused and shot) black youths whilst looking for a possible sniper, and got away without any convictions for what they did.

It is very powerful, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter campaign as well as the Alt-Right movement of recent years. Clearly not enough has changed in those fifty years--one could almost argue things are worse. African-Americans are more economically disadvantaged, racial tensions are possibly even higher and more intrinsic, and police brutality continues to have racist undertones. But I'm not American and won't pretend to have informed opinion; just an opinion that means it is a depressing film because it certainly seems like nothing has changed and nothing is changing, even when (unlike in Syria) it seems the answers are known, the means to make a change exist, and even the willingness to change sometimes exists.

What the film does highlight though is what it feels like to be interrogated and threatened whilst being scared and vulnerable. For me this is particularly shocking and scary. At any moment someone could make a fear-induced mistaken movement, or say something that someone else does not agree with, and someone's life will end. Just like that. It is a powerful movie and I hope all police forces make their staff watch it to better understand what it feels like during these situations where the powerful and the vulnerable face up and in one split second a life could end.

Anyway, it has not all been depressing films over the last few weeks. There's also been time to watch Atomic Blonde (a kick-ass female spy movie with lots of twists set during the fall of the Berlin Wall), the Hitman's Bodyguard (a great laugh of an action film with Samuel L Jackson) and several other films. Having so much free time in the evenings and weekends without the kids feels very strange. I even watched a "boxset" (Designated Survivor--just like 24 really, but from a different viewpoint) since I like Kiefer Sutherland in those kinds of roles and my family recommended it. Thankfully the family will be back tomorrow so it is possible the end of movie watching for a while!