Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) Film Review

Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) (Louverture Films)

2 hrs.

Starring/Featuring: Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Erykah Badu, Robin Kelley, Talib Kweli, Melvin Van Peebles, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Sonia Sanchez

Directed and written by: Goran Hugo Olsson

MPAA Rating: NR

Genre: Documentary

Critic’s Rating: **** stars (out of 4 stars)

Swedish filmmaker and documentarian Goran Hugo Olsson’s Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) is a radical and absorbing examination of a cultural experience that has shaped and defined a nation. The film explores the advocacy of its proud and perplexed people in the black community. Specifically, Mixtape shines an introspective and informative spotlight on the evolution of the Black Power Movement from 1967 to 1975 in candid, piercing fashion from notable African-American personalities from many walks of life in academics, entertainment and politics/activism.

Interestingly, Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) is a powerful and passionate film that displays a refreshing charge of elements highlighted by revealing 16mm footage (courtesy of undiscovered material sitting around in obscurity at a Swedish television venue for three decades), lyrical music, resourceful archives, captivating audio interviews and other testimonial revelations. Bitingly relevant, stylish, poignant and nostalgically intriguing, Olsson delves dutifully into an era of chaos, self-discovery, pulsating pride and resonance that dared to give reassuring eloquence and substance to a disenfranchised society that discovered its dignity and purpose through the Black Power Movement.

Compellingly, European curiosity was in full force as they were distant observers of the unsettling turbulence taking place in America during the targeted period from the late sixties to mid-seventies. In particular, Swedish filmmakers were persistent in finding out the caustic divide causing an uproarious obstacle between disillusioned Black America raising awareness of their periled plight at the expense of a conservative white establishment dismissing their “liberation” as rabble-rousing terrorism.

Fear, paranoia and distrust was long associated with the Black Power Movement and how this cultural crusade could possibly create anarchy…at least according to the nervous-minded American media and other concerned critics. The mindset, from labeled incendiary groups such as the Black Panthers, was to focus on securing equal rights and restoring human decency for its neglected people…not purposely serving as a “nightmarish faction” for its white oppressors.

What is so skillful about Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) is its thorough examination of resilient black leaders and their radiant articulation about oppression for their people and other underprivileged groups. The film emphasizes various Swedish reporters and journalists-home and abroad-that intensely cover the growing Black Power Movement as they interview and document the struggles of vocal black activists such as Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis and Huey P. Newton. Riveting public speeches and personalized in-depth interviews by these feisty figureheads are displayed with such conviction and stark honesty.

The film just does not voice the critical sentiments of famous black faces. In fact, the narrative opens up with a few unknown black men being asked about their feelings in a tumultuous American society. Understandingly, they recall the restrictive and antagonistic treatment that they are routinely met with as a commonplace practice. Plus, noteworthy facts are thrust upon the screen to compliment the angst-driven speculation. For instance, nearly 600,000 blacks in Vietnam were fighting for an America that considers them “less than a man.

There is the predictable showdown of conflicting philosophies involving the black leadership styles between Dr. Martin Luther King and the dynamic Malcolm X. Although some blacks praised Dr. King for his commitment to non-violence and resistance to retaliate against the enemy, they thought his “turn the other cheek” insights were harmful to black men. Malcolm X, however, was the charismatic leader that urged retaliation “by any means necessary” and encouraged black people to think for themselves as they should be nobody’s passive doormat.

Methodically, the documentary breaks down the yearly timeline as it follows the Swedish media’s fascination with the Black Power Movement from years 1967 to 1975. The foolish accusation that the Swedish news reporters are being “unfair” to America for only showing the “negative stuff” about the USA is indeed laughable and comes off as rather defensive given the first-hand alienation of black disenfranchisement that the Europeans are witnessing with disbelief. This, in return, allows a TV Guide exec to conveniently accuse the meddlesome Swedish press of anti-American motives.

The gut-wrenching pulse of the film is the extensive highlights featuring the government’s roving eye on “race agitators” Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis. Both being outspoken, well-versed and actively defiant, we are mesmerized by their courage to speak of the cynicism, disdain and corruption that is aimed toward them and the toxic message they are trying to convey with unselfish forethought. When a Swedish interviewer asked an exiled Carmichael about possibly going back to America to be jailed, he wisely quipped, “Am I afraid of going to jail in America…I WAS BORN IN JAIL IN AMERICA!”

Another eye-raising tidbit has someone asking Angela Davis about how she feels about violence for which an incredulous Davis reminisces about her childhood in Alabama when her world was rocked by violence courtesy of white racists. When Davis shares her thoughts about the church bombings that killed four little girls (for whom she knew some of them) she is absolutely brought to tears. The toughness and vulnerability of Angela Davis was equally impactful in her talk session.

The film informs us of the Black Panther Party’s origins in 1969 in Oakland, California and its eventual growth in New York and even abroad in Algeria. A few talking heads from the Black Panther Party touch upon the misguided assumption that they are confrontational but insist that if they are provoked then they will go through armed measures to protect themselves. Black Panther Bobby Seale, while interviewed in Stockholm about the BPP’s initiatives, reassured that “we will attack racist pigs that look to harm us”. The encouraging portrait of the BPP included stabilizing the ghetto communities, overseeing the free food program for the poor and empowering black youth in preparation for black adulthood and what lies ahead in judgmental America.

As the film progresses to the mid-seventies, The Black Power Movement is undergoing changes but still has difficulty countering the societal ills that plague major urban cities. The skepticism concerning the continued decay of black living is demonstrated through squalor-induced neighborhoods, cluttered streets, impoverished black families living in rat trap apartments and of course the infiltration of drugs into minority communities.

Black luminaries such as Eldridge Cleaver are outraged about the useless government officials and politicians that exploit the black masses (the suggestion that governmental operatives are shipping narcotics into black cities to pacify these people as they self-destruct is strongly hinted). Shocking are testimonials from a couple of black teens with dire outlooks. A teenage boy wonders why there are other groups of people that own businesses in black neighborhoods while black folks do not seem to own anything at all. Sadly, a teen girl offers her take on the survival methods of turning tricks on the street just for loose cash. The additional comments about her creepy stepfather “asking her out” is sickening and quite numbing to this young hopeless, lost girl. Disturbingly, an individual pushing dope in the streets states that it is a way of life and in many ways “an escape route” to dismissing the horrors that exist.

A comprehensive look at the heralded and horrific strides of Harlem, a weary black physician expressing his dismay for treating drug-related casualties in the form of black children, a close look at a heroin-addicted newborn and the arrival of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s regime in the Nation of Islam are all compacted in this shocking story built on rage, anguish, calculated indifference, and promise.

Writer-director Olsson’s documentary is significantly telling and a winning cinematic concoction that questions the search for racial acceptance in hollow echoes of humanity. Stimulatingly raw, confrontational and blistering, Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975) is a searing commentary that is hauntingly expressive in its outrage, resolution and disillusionment.