This short documentary received an Oscar nomination in 1983, which sort of has an importance but truth be told it's one of the weakest nominations ever given
to a film in any category. Not saying it was a bad film or that it didn't deserve the nod but to be fair what can be made of such piece? It's not even a case that
we should say it's good or not since it's mere objective point is to inform viewers. The clueless you are, the better the final result and we must take in
consideration this specific topic wasn't exactly much covered by the movie industry - before this movie there was "Skokie" but that movie deals with the American
Nazi Party rather than Klan, but afterwards you had countless such as "Mississippi Burning", "Betrayed" and the list goes on.
The typical activities of theirs is presented in the movie which covers a new rise in the "institution" and their attacks against African-American communities,
Jewish communities and also the Vietnamese refugees that went on to live on Southern states and working as fisherman (situation greatly explored in Louis Malle's
"Alamo Bay"). A key interesting moment comes from a reporter who infiltrated the Klan and then made a report - pity that he doesn't say much or almost anything new
from what we see and hear about the Klan. If I'm not mistaken, he's the one who talked with an old racist lady that later on got arrested for ordering a crime. It's
a creepy description, a very cold-blooded woman.
Their modus operandi is known to a great of people and the movie doesn't touch on critical points except in presenting their side of story (the usual biased
and prejudicial talk, all unreasonable points) and the descriptions made some of their victims, like the white lady who received a card from theirs saying that would
pay a visit to her since she allowed Vietnamese fishermen to use her harbour. There's no real criticism, which can be good, as long you have audiences who can make
critical judgements and observe exactly what they're seeing, but at times it can be problematic. The final conflictive image and one that scares a bit is seeing the
then new generation of members, the youth getting involved in trainings and going on rallies...are they still there, already became leaders or they manage to grow some
thinking and gave up? 6/10.
