It's a sin to destroy the music of loving kindness

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2003)

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD; 1962, ROBERT MULLIGAN (9 out of 10)
The film deals with racial relations in the American South in the shadow of America's peculiar institution, about seventy years after its formal demise. It manages to condemn racial bigotry without being preachy or demonizing the victims of culturally instilled racism who are otherwise decent and reasonable people.
The leading protagonist, Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck is a father of two (a young boy and a girl), a widower, an attorney and one of the town's most respected citizens, who defends a black man falsely accused of beating and raping a young, poverty-stricken white woman. At the trail it becomes obvious that the accused is innocent (indeed, that a rape did not even take place), and without directly accusing anyone, Atticus makes it abundantly clear to all who is truly responsible for beating the poor, illiterate woman.
The background story is about a mysterious recluse who lives in the home next to Atticus', an obviously kindhearted and generous person who leaves gifts for Atticus' son to find in a rotted-out knot in a tree on the property.
The story is sparsely narrated by Atticus' grown daughter in voiceover, so we only see her as a child as she describes her life, the people around her and the events that take place over a period of roughly seventeen months. Ironically, the little girl's older brother has the more prominent role in the story, and since it is he, not she, who is present at some of the story's most important happenings, we must assume that her brother later described these events to her when they were children.

This is a story about the magic of small-town life in America and the sweet blessings of healthy familial love in the face of human nature's irrational tendency which drives people to fear and to envy those who are different than ourselves. It suggests that loving kindness is our only effective weapon against this dragon though the outcome is always uncertain; that we must be wise enough to see the world as it is and foolish enough to live our lives as if the world were something else.