The Birth of a Nation

Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation was the talk of the Sundance Film Festival last year and it was one of the most coveted tickets.  I tried to get one, to no avail, but I knew that the Salt Lake Film Society would eventually screen it and, sure enough, it is now showing at the Broadway Theatre.  I had the chance to see it Sunday afternoon and all of the hype surrounding the film at Sundance (it garnered the biggest deal for worldwide distribution in festival history and won both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize) was definitely warranted!  The subject of this film is controversial and it is sometimes very difficult to watch but it is powerful, brilliant, and strangely beautiful.  I don't think I will be able to stop thinking about it for days.  It tells the true story of Nat Turner (Nate Parker), who as a child is taught to read but is only allowed to read the Bible.  He becomes a preacher to his fellow slaves on the plantation owned by Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer), who is near bankruptcy.  Many plantations are suffering economic difficulties and owners fear slave uprisings.  Nat is taken to these neighboring plantations to preach to the slaves about submitting to their masters in order to quell the rebellions (and make money for Samuel).  Nat begins to see, by incremental degrees, the evils of slavery, particularly the brutal beating of his wife and the rape of a slave by a guest on the plantation.  As he searches the Bible for justification for slavery, Nat finds more justification for rising up against the chains that bind him.  He eventually foments a dramatic rebellion against his master and those of neighboring plantations (in some incredibly greusome scenes) before being suppressed by the Virginia militia.  Nat is eventually captured and hanged but the film ends with a close-up of a face of a young slave watching the hanging and that same man as a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War showing Turner's legacy.  Parker gives an absolutely riveting performance as Turner and the scenes where he preaches gave me goosebumps.  The beautiful widescreen shots of antebellum Virginia are juxtaposed with nightmarish close-up shots of brutality (some I had to look away from) very effectively and the stirring soundtrack by Henry Jackman adds to the tension.  I walked out of the theater in tears, as did many others in my screening, but I think this is a film that everyone should see.