Blood In The Face (Hate Groups/First Run Features)
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C- Film: B
Released
in 1991 and made at the tail end of The Cold War, the Anne Bohlen/Kevin
Rafferty/James Ridgeway documentary Blood
In The Face continues to be a chilling, disturbing, bold, thorough and
enduring record of hate groups at the end of the original Reagan/Bush years and
how they turned out to be a chilling forecast of things to come. A new wave of fascism that has done nothing
but grow, especially in the 2000s.
going
boldly into the various organized camps of the White Supremacy movement with
interviewers including no less than ever-controversial filmmaker Michael Moore,
we hear about the “evils” of “interracial breeding” and how the Holocaust was a
“hoax” by the usual revisionists, a “race war” arriving any day now and the
usual end of the world rhetoric from the still-hanging-in-there Klu Klux Klan,
an ultra-Right Wing organization simply called The Order, The American Nazi
Party, Aryan Nation and more who have a very twisted, distorted, illogical view
of the world and yes, they just have it out for anyone Jewish and blame them
for everything.
Even when
it is apparent they have never met any Jews or have (really don’t want to have)
any idea about anything Jewish anyhow.
Sixteen years later, the fact that some of these ideas have actually
been mainstreamed by the media unchallenged and some of them have even become
part of the Republican platform is no wonder more young people are
increasingly, explicitly wearing clothes, writing about and talking about ideas
against Fascism.
That all
involved had the nerve to go into the heart of evil where these individuals
(whatever individuality they have left) gather and conduct these interviews is
amazing. You wonder most appropriately
if violence will break out at any minute aimed at the camera crew. These are some sick, angry people and the
rise of their sentiments make seeing or seeing Blood In The Face again a screening to put on your list.
The 1.33
X 1 image is an old analog transfer of what looks to be a good 16mm shoot. Depth is flat, color aged and print flaws
apparent throughout, though a new print and transfer would not have these flaws. Hope this gets an HD transfer next time. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is also a few
generations down, with its dated location audio, but the hate and stupidity
comes through loud and clear. Extras
only include trailers for five other First Run DVD releases related to the
subject of politics.
- Nicholas Sheffo
