A review of Selma (2014)
Directed by Ava DuVernay
Today is Martin Luther King Day, where Americans celebrate the man in the middle of the US Civil Rights movement. In the wake of several recent incidents, this movie, and what the Civil Rights movement represents to America as a people, is very much relevant today.
Selma, named after the city in Alabama where many of the film's events took place, is about a crucial period in the Civil Rights movement where Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his other colleagues and contemporaries such as James Bevel and John Lewis, marched for the right to vote. While many states in the northern US were desegregating, many southern states still staunchly held on to the old ways. Through peaceful marches and protests King and his colleague helped pave the way for voting rights for all Americans.
While today Americans remember the icon behind the movement, Selma tries to remind us of the man behind the icon. Martin Luther King, like the rest of us, is a human being, with his own follies and faults. David Oyelowo brings forth an award winning performance as King. Oyelowo's King is a man with the world on his shoulders, reluctant to make some of the hard decisions but ultimately deciding to trudge forward anyway. History is forged by the brave, even if at first glance they may seem reluctant heroes.
The film deals only with specific moments surrounding this historic march; it is not King's biopic in any way nor does it try to. It deals with the ideals and the spirit of the movement, and that in my opinion is more important: in a period in our history where issues about race figure ever more prominently, it may be prudent to remember what it's all about: an intrinsic human need to be seen, be heard and be masters of their own destiny.
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