Movie #2164 "The Underground Railroad" (t.v. series netflix) I had read the pulitzer prize- winning book and found it quite amazing, but reading about man's inhumanity to man is very different than seeing it --- yes, you can read that in the South while the whites attend a garden party and chomp on all their delicacies, a black slave is being hanged by his arms and torched to death, but seeing it was way too hard for me personally to watch. The movie has what I would call horror moments that I just couldn't watch, but the way it was filmed was at times mesmerizing and pure beauty --- esp. when the director tableaus the characters/actors so they look like they are stand out in dignity from the awfulness of their background (our white world of privilege) . It's hard to explain but pure beauty in film --- but the film is sooooooo slow in pacing, so grim in tone, so difficult to watch --- and I know you are thinking, well, shouldn't it be? Sure, but this is just a warning to those of you who, like me, can just see so much of man's inhumanity to man --- it's preaching to the choir for me --- I got it! I fully agree with the message. Now what can we do about it? It's those glimpses into how whites treat blacks like slaves in a subtle fashion and suggestions how we can change our thinking and our behavior that I so much liked in the book, that occur here, too. I just wish there were more. Each place that Cora goes to, the way the book is set up, she faces a different type of mistreatment. For example, in the first place the train takes her to, which is South Carolina, you don't see the beatings like you did in Part I. In S. Carolina, Cora gets a job to wear a costume and pick cotton in a museum ----- yes, she gets paid for the job and the appearance is that this state is trying to give freedom to the newly freed blacks; however, when she goes to a doctor, he intends to sterilize her so she doesn't bring any black children into their society. Freedom with a price? Part III in North Carolina, she has to live in an attic, sequestered from the white world. Parts V and VI through Tennessee she is shackled and walking by hanged blacks on trees, or blacks lying on the ground from disease. Finally, when she gets to Indiana and there appears to be blacks in leadership positions on this plantation, we learn that there are rules blacks need to follow to appease the whites in the community --- rules that turn their backs on the runaway slaves who need their help and protection. It is all of these subtle and not so subtle ways to beat the black race into submission , and they continue on today--- we see now, in our voting laws that are being recklessly changed in Republican states that refuse to recognize a president who was voted on BY THE PEOPLE! So this t.v. series becomes very important right now --- very topical. The series is worth the watch, for sure. If you can't watch the torturing and violence, be aware they are mostly in Parts 1, 3, 5 and 9. The one shared thread through the literature and the t.v. seres is the underground railroad --- and it is as exciting to see it at work in the show as it was to visualize in the book --- such a fantastical symbol that never existed in reality, but in the dreams of the thousands and thousands of runaway slaves who "traveled"on it to gain their freedom. For that alone, it is worth seeing this well done, well-acted , well-messaged t.v. series. I would give it 4.0 --- tough, intense and slow to watch, but worth the time you are willing to give it.
"THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" 9 hours and 53 mins
A young woman named Cora makes an amazing discovery during her attempt to break free from slavery in the deep south.
