Directed by: Kevin Wilmott
What if the South won the Civil War? According to this mockumentary, slavery would still exist today, Canada would be our Cold War enemy, and we would have to subjected to documentaries like this one. Yes, the concept is intriguing, but the execution is all wrong. It suffers from lack of imagination and chooses to play a lot of the material as parody, which is not the tone one should depict with this kind of material. I think of the film Fatherland, which bases its story around the idea that Germany won World War II and controls Europe. Fatherland is a film in which Germany's sins have political and economic consequences that lead the nation to doom nearly 20 years after it wins the war.
No such problem exists in C.S.A., in which the continuation of slavery apparently leads only to a Cold War with Canada, while the rest of the world doesn't really seem to care. Remember when South Africa was forced by the world to end its policy of apartheid two decades ago? Remember when Communism fell in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe because Communist rule simply couldn't cover up the internal decay going on within the countries themselves? It seems that the C.S.A pretty much exists as an island unto itself, which overall isn't very compelling. The filmmakers seem to believe that the audience will be so intrigued by the film's "what if" ideas that it won't notice that some of the material is inexplicable and not presented realistically.
According to the film, Abraham Lincoln flees to Canada in blackface after the war is lost and is captured. He attempts to convince his captors that he is really a black man by acting in a way that would make Amos N' Andy appear realistic. Lincoln is captured and imprisoned, later banished to Canada. He lives until 1905, but before his death is caught on film discussing his regret over what happened to the former United States. Never mind that talking pictures weren't invented until 1927, it's amazing how crisp and clear both the audio and the film are, despite the fact that most films made in 1905 are barely watchable due to the film quality, if they still exist at all. This film of Lincoln is about as believable as a film showing Lincoln playing with the Internet. C.S.A. also shows commercials pushing products and drugs which keep slaves in line. Some of these products were actually real way back when and the makers of C.S.A. seem to put more thought into the commercials than they do the actual documentary. In fact, some of the film's alternate view of history represents sheer laziness. It keeps some of the same historical events, such as Reconstruction and simply changes the sides around. President John F. Kennedy is also elected in 1960 and asassinated in 1963, the only change being that he ran as a Republican. World War II is also presented in a strange way. According to the film, Germany and the C.S.A. become friendly (due to their similar racial policies) and thus Germany remains neutral when the C.S.A. attacks Japan on December 7, 1941.
It is not made clear why Japan was attacked and it is also impossible for Germany not to declare war on a country that attacks its ally. As mentioned before, much of this material is played for laughs, which is an odd choice. Many of the blacks in the film are depicted as eye-bugging Uncle Toms or "stepinfetchits" who of course never had the chance to be educated due to the continuation of slavery, but this doesn't shed any new light on the subject. In actuality, it is yet one more criticism of America's slavery & racial stereotypes. C.S.A. doesn't cover any new ground here. The last fifteen minutes of the film are devoted to a slave that drops a bombshell about a fictional Presidential candidate who runs in the 2002 election. It treats this section of the film as if we actually care about this, but by then C.S.A. has developed tunnel vision. Oh, and one can't help but notice the parallels to Bill Clinton's sex scandal here.
What a missed opportunity! C.S.A. would've been much better if it actually led somewhere and actually showed how the birth of the Confederacy impacted the world and how the world impacted it. There are events that happen, like the Cold War with Canada, an abolitionist movement, and a very racist football league, but all of these events don't really add up to the shaping and changing of this alternative nation. The history of a nation that is formed and doesn't really evolve is pretty much underwhelming.
No comments:
Post a Comment