Till: A Q Review

Till was fantastic!

Full disclosure: I had to be convinced to go see it because I don’t do horror or hate very well, but I am so grateful (and proud) that I made this exception. It is definitely a film that sticks with you long after you experience it, and it is an experience like no other. It wasn’t just a good movie, it was brilliantly produced and directed**. They told one of America’s most horrific and tragic stories in the most beautiful and elegant of ways. Through the love and courage of a grieving mother, we see one of this country’s overlooked heroes in Mamie Till, as well as its overlooked history. The camera angles were so powerful and precise, they forced your mind to see the bigotry and hatred that was nowhere to be found on-screen. The juxtaposition between white lives and black lives was displayed with such poise and subtlety that it captured the gaping socio-political divide in this country and portrayed it with all the characteristic nonchalance of white-supremacy. It wasn’t just thought-provoking, it was illuminating and infuriating all at the same time.

The movie is made all the more captivating by the fact that you know the fate of the boy going in, so you find yourself going through a wide range of emotions as you watch the boy simply being a boy, knowing that his ignorance will be his downfall. At first you find yourself getting mad at the boy, then you realize how absurd it is to think that way and you get mad at yourself, then you recognize your own innocence so you get mad at everybody around the boy for not doing more to intervene or protect him, and finally, after you cycle through all that fury and frustration, you settle on the undeniably sad truth of it all: there was no one and nothing to protect any Black people at that time, let alone a 14 year old boy.

The most sobering thing about the experience is hearing the rhetoric used in the trial and the media only to realize that nothing’s changed in 70 years–MAGA is just the next evolution of bigotry in America. As you exit the theater, you’re left feeling helpless and furious at your own ignorance and ineptitude.

Anyway, I’m glad I saw it. And you will be, too. Add it to The Queue!

**Till: Chinonye Chukwu (writer, director) & Keith Beauchamp (writer, producer)**