We rarely get to see how others view us. The closest we get to a foreign view of the U.S. is the BBC News. The handful of films about America by foreigners - films like Murnau's Sunrise, von Stroheim's Greed, Fritz Lang's Fury or Antonioni'sZabriskie Point are all masterpieces in their own way. These are great films and acute and dark in their view of the disparity of wealth and American justice. Yet these films hardly register in the American psyche.
It's one reason why Black Power Mixtape, an oddity of a film, directed by the Swedish filmmaker Goran Hugo Olsson, is so fascinating. The key word in the title is "mix tape." The film is made up entirely of footage shot by Swedish filmmakers and cameramen -- largely for Swedish television - from the years 1967 to 1975. This footage is edited in rough chronological order – an assemblage. Perspective comes from contemporary commentary by participants in the actual events or observers. Black Power Mixtape does not aim to be any kind of systematic "documentary" or to present a coherent narrative arc which would "explain" and make plausible what happened in the black power struggle of the late 60s and 70s. Instead, Black Power Mixtapeis a selection of scenes, observations - windows - into the Black Power movement and American race relations.
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