Detroit — the movie
The wait was short, but in the maze of my thoughts time stretched and extended to hours. But now time has come and I am ready. Crisps in my lap, cellphone shut down, and eyes wide open. I am ready for the preview of Detroit!
My pre-movie feelings are mixed. I only saw the trailer and it hooked me in. It was one of those trailers that are piece of art in themselves. The soundtrack brings you into an escalation of tension that gets steeper and steeper as you see what looks to me as plain straight civil war between black and white people. Mainly black boys and white cops. And then there’s the black cop. What’s his role? What’s the storyline? What’s the ending?
Do you want to read my guesses?
- He is the peace-maker, the negotiator between blacks and whites. The hero in an impossible situation caused mainly by the behaviour of his colleagues and the colour of his skin.
- Some black guys were not doing anything dangerous but for a silly joke they got into troubles with white officers. There must be more, but hard to guess.
- I imagine the ending as a silent scene in a soulless city with no winners and no losers.
But now it starts. Let’s see how good I am at this game.
-Two hours and a bit later-
Boy, I was wrong. I was so wrong.
I feel so shaken that my entire body hurts in the attempt to make sense of what I saw, to reconcile the idea of freedom that I give so much for granted with what happened that night in Detroit.
And I exit the movie theatre with the knowledge that something has to be done, with a sense of purpose running through my vein, with a call to action for something bigger than myself and that would last beyond my existence.
I was wrong about the black cop, under many aspects. First, he’s not a cop, but that doesn’t matter much. What really matters it’s his role. I thought he was a protagonist, but I realised halfway through that he was only a spectator, probably the metaphorical eyes of the audience. But, again, I was wrong. I finally understand he is the victim. One of the victims, anyway.
The protagonist is someone else. Probably the actual protagonist is the villain in the end. Or maybe it’s the entire city of Detroit — or even the entire US.
The storyline is something we have already seen many times under different circumstances. So it’s not the violence of whites against blacks, which in the end is violence of men against men, that terrifies you. What grips your eyes and locks them to the screen is the careful tension-building of the movie, which develops into three main stages.
1. The documentary
There is no story at the beginning. For a good period of time — longer than one feels comfortable with — the movie is just a sequence of facts, snapshots of what is going on in Detroit. Riots, fires, looting, fighting. We witness the degeneration of a city that suddenly becomes a war zone.
The lack of a story and of actual characters leaves you disoriented and confused. Provocative.
2. The events
We get to know the villains first, and it’s pretty clear they are the bad guys since the very first scene we meet them. We also get to know the good guys, but we don’t know yet whose story is this one.
The night evolves and shit happens. The movie goes back to a more canonical form of representation and we follow with sweaty hands and thumbing heart the events. The meat of the story happens in a hotel and once we enter that hotel we never leave its walls.
Characters develop and the real nature of people comes out. We end up loathing a few people. I had to refrain myself a couple of times to get up and hit that guy in the face myself. But what good would that have made? I would go to jail and he would still be free.
3. The ending
Then it comes to wrap it up. But don’t worry, there is still time for twists. And remember, we are talking about American justice. In the late ‘sixties.
And that feeling rushes back again, my blood reaches its boiling point once more. I tighten my fists and try to breath calmly. But I swear, breaking that guy’s nose would have been pretty satisfactory.
The ending could not be farther from my guess. There are clear winners and clear losers. But maybe in the end there are no winners, after all.
And what is left is not silence, but something close to it. A deafening unheard cry of anger and pain.
Final comment
I loved the way the movie was performed. The entire crew of actors and actresses stretched their skills to their peaks.
I especially enjoyed the change in directing style during the development of the plot. The documentary stage is filmed with shaky shots, as if recorded by amateurs: a clever trick to transport you right to the middle of the action as an actual eye-witness. And the insertion of actual scenes shot at the time made it even more real, closer to your daily life. The rest of the movie, instead, is more linear.
One thing I felt real was the concreteness of the violence used throughout the movie. I felt — and from what I could hear, the same goes for everyone else in at the cinema — the pain of every blast, the shock of every hit on my own skin. I went out the room looking for spots of bloods on my shirt. But the only thing that was hurt was my pride as a human being.
