On Thanksgiving day, Cairo Medina (Che Ayende) visits author/Professor Walker Eastman (Ward Nixon) in an attempt to gain solace and understanding as he is descending into madness due to the police brutality and institutionalized racism around him. Eastman has prompted Cairo to take an interest in “Black alliance” and work with other African-Americans to improve their political situation in the West — but only when it is convenient for him. Although both characters give a strong argument, this memorably expressionistic scene is at once absurd and moving due to its acknowledgment that colonization & capitalism has succeeded in destroying the black community at large.
Made with an uncompromising passion, Dennis Leroy Kangalee’s powerfully strange film was an artistic response to the police murder of Amadou Diallo by the NYPD in 1999.
Made with the sweaty thrust of a political punk or hip-hop record, this “cinematic tone poem” was misunderstood by most establishment critics (‘too angry”, and not “hopeful” enough) and was the antithesis of a Hollywood Production, but found a life outside of America and within avant-garde and more politically progressive circles.
— Notes from Donald Griffith’s 2004-2005 Tanz Theater-Black International Cinema Festival program, Berlin & Paris Edition.
NOTE: This footage was re-assembled from various bootlegs and we’ve tried hard to retain the original sound, however difficult.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 
“I simply feel that the kids in their 20’s today try to model their lives on the surfaces of people and ideas that simply appeal to their basic desires and fashionable politics. They are flags in the wind. They have no real convictions or substance, and they are easily manipulated – but so is everyone else. Regardless of age. But if the youth are so innovative today — what have they given us besides social media and a ‘hip’ corporate culture that breeds apathy? It’s Orwellian. I mean, we’re all Boxers at the end of the day, really – or the best of us are. Some of us are Clovers. And a few of us are Benjamins. That’s me. I know for a fact that life will never improve or change. And I accept that. But I don’t have to accept my misery on the inevitable journey to the grave.” — St. Claire Mulligan, Tremors
..On the Inevitable Journey to the Grave
Share this:
Like this: