WEST BRATTLEBORO — The next offering in All Souls Church's film series “Looking Inward at White Power and Privilege” will be BlacKkKlansman, the acclaimed 2018 film directed by Spike Lee and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver.
The full-length, commercial feature will be shown for free at the church, at 29 South St., on Sunday, Jan. 27 starting at noon. A discussion will follow.
Before the film, the church will provide a free lunch of chili and corn bread at 11:30 a.m.
The film series, now in its second year, is presented by the church's Social and Environmental Action Committee (SEAC).
According to a news release, BlacKkKlansman portrays the true story of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer who, in the 1970s, successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan.
Viewers can appreciate the film on several levels simultaneously.
For example, some viewers focus on the message. Writes Richard Lawson in Vanity Fair, “BlacKkKlansman's joke is an indictment of complacency, particularly that of white liberals who'd rather not confront the distressing fact that not much has changed in 40 years, beyond a restyling of old, old ideology.”
Meanwhile, others are entranced by Lee's craftsmanship.
A.O. Scott, writing in The New York Times, said Lee's “fearless embrace of contradiction gives BlacKkKlansman its velocity and heft. It is worth pausing to admire its sheer, dazzling craft, the deftness of its tonal shifts - from polemical to playful, from humorous to horrific, from blaxploitation to Classical Hollywood and back again - and the quality of its portraiture.”
The online movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the film a 95-percent-positive rating, observes that “BlacKkKlansman uses history to offer bitingly trenchant commentary on current events - and brings out some of Spike Lee's hardest-hitting work in decades along the way.”
Like other films in this series, this work includes some challenging content that is not appropriate for children.
Child care is available upon request.