Content area
Full text
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Country/Year: Sweden, 201 1
Opening: September 9
Where: New York
REVIEW BY INA DIANE ARCHER
"THEY WERE INTO YOU, SO THEY made you a tape" is the simple description of, and rationale for, a mixtape according to Cassette From My Ex, a website devoted to these audio artifacts. Mixtapes (distinct from dance mixes) were carefully edited compilations of obscure and familiar songs arranged to express the maker's interests and tell an aural story, often designed for a particular and/or intimate listener. Goran Hugo Olsson's mixtape documentary is a chronological, musically structured collage tracing the arc of the Black Power movement from its inception during the civil rights era through its dissolution as drugs began to erode black communities in the Seventies, created with rarely seen footage culled from the archives of Swedish Television.
The film opens with an image that eloquently evokes the careful approach of the filmmakers: a clip of an American flag threading through a flatbed editing console. Olsson and his editorial team allow the compelling and often beautiful archival material to flow unencumbered by traditional documentary interventions, with each of the nine chapters introduced by a superimposed date with small...