Black and White

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2004)

Dr Martin Luther King jr. once said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..."
This film goes as far as film can go to illustrate that proverb in a much broader context than mere racism. Character is the entire study in this film (apart, I suppose, from Mr Merrick's biography). Probably my all-time favorite movie, there is nothing Hollywood about it. Black and white brings out the texture of industrial England and lets the brain focus more on sound than sight. To this end, the movie seems quite bent round its script, which is an uncommon power, mature, and marking the limits of language with repetition --but in more graceful modes than the great woes which would bring Shakespeare to repeat a verse... And the story is simple enough, the acting is worthy of its nominations, the whole production is far more than entertainment...