14η Τροπολογία

Brian 🩸🦇

This film approvingly quotes Ronald Reagan at the start and at the end. There are also, like, five straight minutes of AI-animated historical photographs. A whole montage depicting black life post-reconstruction slathered in AI. Many of the other photographs have been “restored” by the same means; you can see random faces bobbing about in quite a few stills. Which is rather odd, because plenty of other photographs in the film have clearly been animated and/or restored without recourse to AI. Why use AI at all, especially in such a central sequence? Perhaps I shall never know, as Ava Duvernay, following her introduction, took her leave from Alice Tully Hall.Fuck ICE, fascists, Donald Trump, etc.

Matt Neglia3.0

The importance and timeliness of Ava DuVernay’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, 13th, cannot be overstated. With a similarly accessible and impactful approach to a dense, complex subject, DuVernay makes abundantly clear the severity of the threat currently facing American democracy through the many recent strategic attacks on the 14th Amendment, not only by the current administration but by a hateful movement that dates back to the Civil War. 14th is a vital and infuriating piece of filmmaking that seeks to educate its audience into action, particularly as this year’s midterm elections approach. Unfortunately, the film’s constant use of AI to animate archival photographs is a constant source of distraction, undermining what was otherwise shaping up to be every bit as powerful and effective as 13th was a decade ago.Check out Amy Kim’s full review on NextBestPicture.com here

Kevin3.0

Sorry, but if you are using generative AI to recreate what African Americans went through during Reconstruction or the events of January 6th, I think that completely invalidates this documentary because you are actively using tools that continue to disenfranchise and destabilize democracy. I can understand and appreciate the importance of this documentary. But this has an Obama-era level of liberalism that fails to address the systemic rotting of our country’s democracy, much of it so intrinsically tied to capital. A necessary and vital story to share, but its execution was unimpressive, often feeling like a summation of the last decade than dissecting anything apart. Dean Withers jumpscare.