Certificate 12
Duration 127 mins
Film starts approximately 21.00
DJ from 18.45: PAUL CAMO
DuVernay’s story focuses on Martin Luther King in 1965 as he and his tight-knit team arrive in Selma, Alabama, to meet up with fellow campaigners in order to arrange a 54-mile march to the state capital in Montgomery to demand equal voting rights. Once there they meet fierce opposition that stretches from racist locals and police officers all the way up to the offices of state governor George Wallace, as well as Lyndon Johnson’s White House and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.
This is a film that’s intricately plotted and full of intrigue and surprise, like the great Hollywood films of the 1970s, but which also knows how to fire up its audience so that we can feel as well as think. When the time comes for King and his followers to march, it’s hard to think of many sequences in cinema that are as urgent and powerful. The marches in 1965 come between King’s famous I Have a Dream speech in 1963 and his assassination in 1968, the 50th anniversary of which is being marked this year.
British actor David Oyelowo is remarkable as the civil rights leader. In his performance we can see dignity, determination, intelligence and anger, not to mention the humour and compassion essential to helping everyone through such difficult times. This is undoubtedly a film to watch on the big screen and to share with others, both to celebrate the power of Ava DuVernay’s vision and to feel the strength in coming together as a group for a collective experience.
