This guest post first appeared at Arielle Loren, daily musings for ladies and curious men.
Seeing My Reflection In Film: Night Catches Us Struck a Chord With Me
Based in Philadelphia, Night Catches Us tells the story of two former black panthers trying to re-establish life after leaving The Party and the death of a fellow panther years ago. While the central plot revolves around these two characters’ lives, Hamilton integrates into the film historic footage of the Black Panther Party. As this era of black history often is pigeonholed to radicalism, Hamilton truly humanizes The Party through several scenes of police brutality, corruption, and community gatherings. For instance, Washington’s character, Patricia, would raise money to pay the legal fees for her less fortunate clients and feed every child on the block even when she couldn’t pay her light bill.
This sentiment of “community first” is the history with which I identify and the one that I wish we could spread to more mainstream screens. While watching this film, I saw my reflection. From Washington’s afro to her desire to serve her community, I felt hope again for the half-baked images rummaging through mainstream black film. Night Catches Us only is playing in select theaters, BUT you can rent it on iTunes and On Demand via Comcast. Thus, there’s no excuse not to support this film; we’ve got to support the films that we want to see in the mainstream.
Check out the trailer for Night Catches Us below and if you haven’t seen the film, view it on iTunes. Tell me, how can we get more films like this onto the big screen?
This looks amazing. It’s definitely time for indie film to supersede the platitudes about tolerance and prejudice that Hollywood offers and to dive into the politics of race.