4 LITTLE GIRLS (Green Valley) Produced and Directed by Spike Lee. MPAA Rating: Unrated (could be PG for violent images) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
The best documentaries manage to uncover truths deeper than their most obvious subjects; the best documentarians recognize that they can use the film medium to tell stories as compelling as anything fictional. 4 LITTLE GIRLS, a powerful tale of tragic loss turned into positive action, is more than the sort of "talking head" video textbook most people envision when they think of conventional documentaries. It is the work of a film-maker who knows how to provoke viewers while he educates them, who has experience examining the challenging subject of race in America. That gentleman's name is Spike Lee.
Lee begins at the ending in 4 LITTLE GIRLS, opening with an elegiac remembrance of four victims of a racially motivated church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963: 11-year-old Denise McNair, 14-year-old Carole Robertson, 14-year-old Cynthia Wesley and 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins. Through photographs and interviews with family and friends, we come to know the four girls not merely as symbols, but as individuals, remembered fondly as vibrant lives cut short. The prologue, accompanied by the mournful Joan Baez ballad "Birmingham Sunday," concludes with potent images -- the smiling young faces of the four girls superimposed over their gravestones.
From there, Lee launches into a history in brief of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, one which never feels like a typical documentary. The knowledge of the tragedy to come lends context and consequenct to the battles of the civil rights activists; it is a battle which we know will have its casualties. And the knowledge of those casualties adds even more resonance to an unforgettable moment in which former Alabama governor George Wallace, reduced by strokes to an incomprehensibility requiring sub-titles, desperately attempts to convince Lee that he is a changed man by showing off his black "best friend." 4 LITTLE GIRLS creates a vivid portrait of Alabama in the 1960s, rich with detailed characterizations which make it feel like Lee always has his eye towards creating a narrative.
For all the historical detail, Lee never loses sight of the centerpiece of the film. The recollections of the bombing itself are shattering, none more so than Denise McNair's mother recounting the subtle condescension she faces when she attempts to see her daughter's body. It's unfortunate that Lee follows those scenes with the indictment and trial of "Dynamite Bob" Chambliss for the killings, by far the weakest sequence in the film. It may have provided a necessary closure to show the criminal eventually brought to justice, but 4 LITTLE GIRLS is much more powerful detailing how this tragedy became a catalyst for change in the public perception of Southern racism was affected around the world. Lee also offers frightening comparisons to the recent spate of black church burnings in the South, highlighting his ability to make the film many things at once -- a memorial, a history lesson, an opportunity for healing, a warning to stay vigilant. 4 LITTLE GIRLS is a gripping experience, an epic testament to triumph over hatred which never forgets the very personal loss of four families who still miss their four little girls.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 elegies: 8.
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