I don't regret seeing it, AT ALL!!
Movies about this period kind of make me sick. To my
stomach. Either there is too much of that “60s in the South of the USA white
hatred and violence” and I am sick and even scared. Or there is not enough and
everything is implied, so it's more violent. And worse with my running
imagination I think far more worse would have happened in real life.
Those times were scary and messed up. In the middle of
the film, Medgar Evers, a Civil Rights fighter is killed. It is plain and
simple terrorism. Gun the man down, so others would think twice before doing
the same. It reminded me about Spike Lee's Four Little Girls documentary. About
the racist bombing that killed 4 girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama in
1963. It is the same sick thinking: bomb the church during Sunday school so
kids won't dare taking the streets fighting for their rights and a future where
they won't be treated as low class citizens.
I really liked
"The Help" and above all laughed a lot. Those stories, those people, those situations
were infuriating and hard to take, but it was balanced by the natural comic of
all this. In the end this is just stupid nonsense.
I liked the fact that all the national turmoil, the
Civil Rights Movement about to achieve its highest, Dr Martin Luther King, even
the death of John F. Kennedy; all was in the background but at the same time
intensively present.
“You is kind, you is smart, you is important”
Those black women that took care of white children
love them as their own. It made me think about this article I read about South
Africa once. The same thing occurred. The kids loved the nannies that raised
them, but they grew up hating and despising them as hard, even more. In the
film it is interesting the relationship between the black maids and their white
bosses they used to take care of. Maybe they knew and they felt how much those
women were loved instead of the mothers.
A really good movie, that gives a different
perspective without forgetting about the essential. The 60s in the United
States were a very exciting, time of change, but change is difficult and can be
very hurtful!
One thing about the better of seeing a movie in Original Version: In French “white trash” isn't “plouc”. In American it is a denomination sometimes very full of hatred. In French “plouc” is just condescending and patronizing. Can be hurtful but in a “French way” passing it like humorous, but it is not as strong.
