The Rape of Recy Taylor (2019)

Great Film overall

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is quite a slow, considered documentary on the rape of Recy Taylor using old race films, photographs, footage and evocative music to convey the times. It starts well enough, although at times it it completely overshadowed by the music (Dinah Washington' achingly haunting, This Bitter Earth) and the arty reconstructions distract. It's uneven and Recy Taylor's story is devastating enough without the documentary halfway veering into a discourse about black women's activism by some preachy white feminist scholar. Reframing the narrative through a modern perspective is more often that not, unfaithful to history. One of the most powerful images that I took away was Recy Taylor's father having to spend nights in a tree with a shotgun to guard his family after they'd gone public about the rape. It's a harrowing story but it isn't handled very well. I don't recall if they mentioned the similar gang rape of Betty Jean Owens. fifteen years later, and the different outcome, but they should have.

I agree that we do need more of these movies, but this one miss the point. Maybe I am wrong, but as a white woman I strongly believe that is ESSENTIAL that these movies should be made ENTIRELY by black people. The movies is confusing, jumping from the story of Recy Taylor, to the autobiography of Rosa Park, which is already a well-known pillar of the African American right movements. The continuous jumping back and forth in between Rosa and Recy takes away from the horror, and we need to UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE the horror. Also, the story is about a woman and HER FAMILY victimized both physically and mentally by the Justice system. It's too much to take in, to hear the tearing stories of the rapists' relatives describing them as just kids fooling around, or even worse war vet with purple hearts. It's also unacceptable to hear a white woman (despite how much she wants to help) saying that the Civil Right Movement "abandoned" Recy after the Second Grand Jury fail to convict. What was excruciating and marvelously done, was the agony and complete sense of despair her father suffered. It almost reflected the saying: when there's no hope , there's nothing.