Quietly Powerful

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2015)

Ava DuVernay's retelling of the events leading up to the march from Selma to Montgomery is an elegant, well-crafted film that, while breaking no new ground (and seeming to contradict well-researched data on Martin Luther King's relationship with Lyndon Johnson), is subtly moving. Like Dr. King, DuVernay prefers to work with words rather than depend on visuals and the result is a series of quiet, well-reasoned arguments (the articulate screenplay is by Paul Webb) that bring out the dignity of the topics and of the performers; when the necessary counterpoint of violence is shown, it only serves to underscore the importance of the discussions and DuVarny smartly keeps these sequences short. As a director, she makes good choices, preferring to film in the familiar sepia tones that we seem to associate with the civil rights movement (the cinematography is by Bradord Young); and she knows when to closely involve us (with the use of hand-held cameras) and when to wisely stay out of the way in order to let her performers shine--which they do, particularly David Oyelowo as King and Carmen Ejogo as his wife. They get so lost in the characters you can't help but be pulled in; one focus of the film is on the stress that the movement places on their marriage and the actors' convincing ability to unify on every level is one of the film's quiet triumphs. "Selma" is a labor of love for DuVernay and while her facts may be questionable, as a filmmaker, she gets it right.