Within Our Gates

The dedication Micheaux had to make this picture is something to marvel at. This is cinema for the underground long before such a thing would come into play. Touching and brutal melodrama. Light years ahead of any movie in terms of intelligence and giving cinema a place in the art world where the disenfranchised could have a say but largely ignored for obvious reasons.

There is a number of interesting narratives reflecting black life in white America but the film is messy with how it jumps between narratives and certain plot beats are brought up but never really explored. The movie lacks cohesion. To its credit, the portrayal of altruistic racism is apt and accurately conveys the racial dynamics of the time but is candid enough to show that the victims weren't hapless or even necessarily moral. A shame that this film didn't pick an element and focus on it.

It's fairly clear by watching this that Micheaux was always an authour first, filmmaker second. The amount of exposition lopped into the numerous intertitles adds to the film's messy, crammed narrative, attempting to do too much at once without properly establishing what, exactly, is occurring. It is quite interesting to see a film reverse the role of the "savage black man" at this time, however, and the final sequence--parallelling the rescue sequence in 'The Birth of a Nation'--is great.

There's some really interesting social and racial politics going on, and I was especially fascinated with the juxtaposition between religion and education (vis a vis the black struggle for equality) that feels decades ahead of its time. Some great filmmaking (and storytelling) for the time as well, especially the editing and the reveal. There are issues with loose threads and the title cards, but they mostly feel like problems caused by an incomplete preservation of the original film.

Definitely the worst movie ive ever seen. This even ranks below human centipede 3 and those random porn movies from the 80s that are impossible to get off to.

Interesting more as an historical piece (the first surviving feature film by a black director and the first surviving "race film." For the most part it's pretty boring to modern eyes, though, and oddly structured, with the story playing out and then a long flashback sequence at the end explaining a character's backstory.

My enjoyment of this film is predicated entirely on the flashback. Before that, the film is put together strangely, often leading to questions about the flow from one scene to the next. However, all that disappears in the flashback, which tells not just a coherent, but a bracing and important story about life as a black person in a white world. Micheaux is able to capture a vitality in the lead character, a struggle for her own survival that continues to connect and communicate a century later.

Micheaux was primarily a novelist, and it shows in "Within Our Gates," since it focuses on characters and story to an extent that the filmmaking is jumbled and amateurish-- crammed, even, into a running time of 80 min. Might have had much more cinematic depth and coherence had Micheaux focused on visuals and atmosphere rather than characters and nuanced, lengthy narrative, but he still brings a unique aesthetic as a filmmaker. Overall, a unique film, and probably worth seeing.