Let the Fire Burn

This documentary is insanely, incredibly affecting - and I'm someone who is often critical of overly biased documentary features. This one is a triumph of editing; I hope more documentaries attempt what the filmmakers pulled off here, in terms of not having a narrator or talking heads and focusing exclusively on archival footage - including, most notably, footage from an investigative commission that was held in the wake of the 1985 standoff.

This is one of those stories that not enough people know about; it seems to have weirdly dissolved into history, despite the fact that three city blocks were completely firebombed in Philly, by its own police force. The fact that the documentary does not talk down to the viewer, or cake itself in sanctimony, is practically revelatory. This film is cold and hard. It tells the truth. It offers no easy answers about how to move forward. It'll probably ruin the rest of your day. But it really must be seen.

Let the Fire Burn, Director Jason Osder's first feature film, chronicles the chaotic and destructive events between the Philadelphia Police Department and the radical group MOVE from the 1970's to the 1980's. Contrary to most Documentary films, Osder uses no interviews, no re-enactments and no un-needed footage. Instead, Osder employs his own style by using only archival footage, showing the film in a sort of "real time". The footage is not shown in chronological order, instead he edits the clips in an order to show the lies and deceit behind the claims of most of the police officers.

MOVE, the radical group the film's focus is on, is a black liberation group that frequently engage in demonstrations against racism and police brutality. The group was founded in 1972, and this is where Osder's film begins. It chronicles MOVE's rise as a group in the early 1970's, it's conflicts with the police, and the escalation of violence between the two groups.

Osder doesn't show this one after the other like a timeline. Instead, he edits the clips into different parts of the film to provide pacing and to clearly state the message he is trying to share. Through depositional interviews and an archived documentary, Osder provides context on the MOVE organization for the audience. He then goes back and forth between differing footage as the events between MOVE and the police begin to escalate. As tensions begin to elevate, such as a police officer getting shot and killed, Osder still keeps the focus on the actions of the police and the in- justice that accompanies the MOVE organization. Even though a police officer was killed, juxtaposing footage doesn't prove that a MOVE member killed the officer. Other footage then shows the beating of a defenseless black man, Delbert Africa. While this footage is played, testimony from the police is played over, showing that the footage doesn't match the statements made by police. Officers suggested that Delbert Africa had a knife and was acting violently, when the footage shows that he walked out of the house with his hands held high, no weapons on him, completely defenseless. Not to mention that eventually 9 people would be found guilty for the murder of one person, and all 9 people were sentenced to life in jail. And yes, you did in fact read that right.

Osder does this many times throughout the film, juxtaposing the archival footage he has with the live testimony from the officers present. Each time, the footage overrules the statements made, revealing the distortion and fabrication.

While the film itself focuses on a terrible issue, it struck me that this even occurred over 30 years ago, yet is still relevant to America today. Police are still not held accountable for their actions, they are still treated above the law. Because it is still relevant today, it makes the film that much better. That people can still be showed this film, and it can still make them think and discuss the issues that face this country.

Finally, the last part of the film I want to touch on is actually a person, Birdie Africa. He was the only child to survive the tragedy, and he is the real message of the film. 5 children inevitably died, and the first-hand account that Birdie shares is truly frightening. Children were burned alive while firefighters and officers stood outside and watched, and did nothing. It infuriates me to even think about it while writing this, but 11 people died and no one was charged. 1 officer dies, and nine people are charged for that one death. Osder is trying to point out the huge discrepancies between police and everyone else, to bring attention to a tragedy still relevant today, to discuss the gross injustice that still lives. This film was great but it was not enjoyable, because it showed me the truth, and sometimes the truth can be uglier than you could possibly imagine.

This 95 minute documentary traces the history of the black liberation group MOVE through the two attempts of the philadelphia police to destroy them in 1978 and 1985, during which they put an explosive on the roof of their community house and took the decision to let the fire burn, which later in the day destroyed an entire city block. Most of the footage are taken from the public hearings surrounding the aftermath of the crisis as well as live TV footage of the two assaults, in order to document the terrorist attacks conducted by the philadelphia police. As of last week, the documentary was streaming for free, to remember the day of May 13th, 1985 when the second attack happened.

On May 13, 1985 there was a long standoff between Philadelphia police and MOVE members, a group formed by a man who went by the name of John Africa. The standoff ended with the police dropping C4 onto the roof of their townhouse at 6221 Osage Ave. A fire resulted which killed eleven people, five of whom were children. That same fire would go unchecked and burn down sixty homes in total. There were two survivors: twelve-year-old Michael Moses Ward and Ramona Africa. It was a sad day for the city of Philadelphia no matter how you view it: urban warfare, eleven lives lost, three city blocks burned to the ground. That's nothing to be proud of.

"Let the Fire Burn" is a documentary covering the standoff between MOVE and the police. It's also a statement made by the mayor at the time, Mayor Wilson Goode, when he said, "There was a decision to let the fire burn."

MOVE had had a standoff before in 1978 when a police officer was killed. They were a small cult/organization that attracted attention more with their behavior than their beliefs. By pretty much being bad neighbors they had the police called on them time and time again. May 13th was the actions of the city after many neighborhood complaints.

The question is, were the police too aggressive, reckless, and negligent in trying to extract the MOVE members? I think we can say yes to that. We saw a similar scenario play out in Waco, Texas about eight years later. The documentary mostly covers the testimonies of police, fire, neighbors, and surviving MOVE members. In there as well is news footage from the May 12th - 13th siege as well as the 1978 raid. Whether this was a case of mistakes being made or a group hell bent on a police showdown it's hard to say. What's not hard to say is that a lot of innocent people lost their homes as a result, and that my be the real tragedy.

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Let the Fire Burn is a documentary about an almost forgotten series of incidents that were in many ways like the later Waco fiasco. Sadly, it seems that government officials hadn't learned from this earlier experience in Philadelphia.

Back in the 1970s, an odd group was created in Philadelphia that called itself 'MOVE'. They were rather cult-like by outward appearances and their members lived communally. They apparently raised their children naked and fed them raw foods—insisting on a back to nature approach to life. Their exact beliefs and practices were a bit vague when I watched Let the Fire Burn, but the organization fell afoul of society for two obvious reasons—they lived within a large city and could not go unnoticed living this way and they were also very anti-police. Whether they became anti-police as a result of police persecution or they began that way is difficult to know based on what I saw in the film. Regardless, they and the police disliked and distrusted each other.

After years of antagonism and some incidents of violence, MOVE set up headquarters in a neighborhood row house and appeared to be trying to provoke some sort of action or compromise. They began blasting messaged laced with profanities on loudspeakers and built some bunkers on the roof of this row house to resist the police. Naturally the neighbors hated this and wanted some action—and it couldn't remain that way for long. However, the degree to which the police responded took people by surprise. They surrounded the place and pumped thousands of bullets into the row house. Then, after some time passed, they had a helicopter fly over and drop a large bomb on the place. After the explosion, the police and fire departments did nothing—they just let the fire burn— claiming it was too dangerous to allow fire crews near the blaze. Not surprisingly, most of the people inside were killed and about half of them were children. Because the fires were not put out, pretty much the whole neighborhood ending up being gutted. According to the film, the cheap housing put up to replace these homes was later condemned. Obviously this was NOT Philadelphia's finest hour!

As a retired history teacher, my thought is always on what we can learn from the incident. As I mentioned above, about a decade later the federal government had a somewhat similar situation with the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. Claiming to be concerned about child abuse, the rescue mission ended up killing everyone inside this complex! Obviously, we did not learn from the MOVE tragedy.

But what other lessons can we learn from the firebombing in Philadelphia? The filmmakers really don't take an obvious opinion, as there is no narration—just archival footage. The film leaves many, many questions unanswered. It's inferred that the filmmakers felt the police overreacted and mentioned that later civil cases awarded damages to the survivors—but beyond that, it's difficult to say. What might have made this much clearer would have been to include new interviews in order to see how the participants and survivors see the incident today. This is problematic, however, as the lone teen survivor recently drowned on a cruise ship. As for the other survivor, Ramona Africa (who also survived and was jailed following the incident), the film indicated that she is alive and fighting the system BUT didn't have any recent interviews with her. Additionally, while some archival footage was shown of a couple MOVE members who were not in the home during the firebombing, oddly they were not interviewed either by the filmmakers. Even then, SOME of the police, news reporters and government officials could have been interviewed. Because it lacks any sort of attempt to try to make sense of all this almost 30 years later, the film loses a bit of its punch. However, it still packs quite a strong emotional appeal without this and is very well made. It leaves the viewer numb and, in my case, vaguely angry that the situation was handled in such a heavy- handed fashion.