A Time for Burning

It's just an hour of people talking about race relations and integration, some pushing for some progress and others being regressive morons, but what an hour it is. What really makes this effective is a combination of the fly on the wall style, everyone seems very open in their conversations, as well as the editing which takes us from one place to another and back again while maintaining a strong cohesion throughout the film. I was very impressed.

There's no narration, no explanatory text, it's all filmed as it's happening. Simply meetings of people discussing racial issues. And it's all utterly riveting. It's fascinating to see the problems of integration and acceptance being discussed at the height of the civil rights movement, by people who seem to have a genuine interest in finding solutions. But they're plagued by doubt and fear, letting themselves be cowed by what appears to be a small minority of those not ready for change.

Like Wiseman distilled, powerful and still relevant.

A brief but great documentary about privilege and how it corrupts those who mean well.