Mobile, Ala. is home to the nation's oldest Mardi Gras festival. During the two weeks of pageants and parades, the locals abide by a tradition of racially segregated celebrations, simultaneously exposing behavior that is both taboo and honored.
Director Margaret Brown's expert use of irony and social commentary in "The Order of Myths" is as captivating as the elaborate and pricey galas of the 2007 occurrence. The uncomfortably real moments are most evident through a running theme of whites making reference to future hopes for equality, then handing off a discarded piece of china to a black server working an all-white event. The tension peaks when members of the black Mardi Gras queen's family comment that their ancestors were brought to Mobile on the slave ship Clotilda by ancestors of the white queen's family. The just-so manner in which the black family references its past is consistent throughout the film, keeping tensions to a minimum but acknowledging them nonetheless.
The sense of ambivalence is also prevalent on the white side. Comments are made concerning hopes for integrated celebrations, but the same people later express a desire for maintaining the rich traditions that are enjoyed by each group. Folks acknowledge the touchiness of the situation and how the Mobile celebrations are different by exhibiting such throwback values, but few are in a hurry to make a change.
An additional layer of intrigue is found in the film's first interviewee, a friendly-looking and eerily familiar older Southern gentleman. His second appearance identified him as Dwain Luce and it clicked for me that he was featured in Ken Burns' "The War." Curious if Luce's celebrity status had influenced Brown's editing decision to place him at the film's opening, those wonderings were shattered in Luce's final clip when an additional identifier appeared below his name: "My Grandfather." It was a stunning epiphany that made me feel, through my dual-film appreciation of Luce and rapport with Brown (who I interviewed for a newspaper article), like Dwain Luce's unknown friend.
Take time to see this film. It was criminally left off of the short list of 15 films from which 5 will be nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar. "The Order of Myths" is better than the best on that list, including the excellent "Man on Wire" and "Trouble the Water."
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Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2009
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