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Let the Fire Burn
By Jason Osder
Zeitgeist Films/2013/88 min.
Composed entirely of archival footage, Jason Osder's Let the Fire Burn looks at the events surrounding the destruction of a neighborhood and the suppression of an activist movement in Philadelphia in 1985. The film begins with a clip from the video deposition given by a boy named Birdie Africa, one of only two survivors of the bombing of MOVE headquarters. Founded in 1972 by John Africa, MOVE is a black political group that espouses a back-to-the-land style of communal living and militant anti-authoritarian political views. On May 13, 1985, in response to mounting tension between Philadelphia police and MOVE, police launched a massive operation, firing ten thousand rounds of ammunition into the group's home and dropping an incendiary bomb that not only destroyed the targeted rowhouse, but set ablaze an entire city block of more than sixty houses.
Stitching together bits from the hearings of the investigative committee, news reports, and a previous documentary made about MOVE, the film revolves around Birdie's testimony, during which he is asked whether he understands the importance of telling the truth. Approaching the subject through what was already said and recorded strategically situates the filmmaker as a roving, objective documentarían. In the many glowing reviews the film has received in the press, its success has been attributed...