![American Violet]({"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IL1iBmeUL._SY445_.jpg":[445,316],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IL1iBmeUL._SY500_.jpg":[500,355],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IL1iBmeUL._SY606_.jpg":[606,430],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IL1iBmeUL._SY679_.jpg":[679,482],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91IL1iBmeUL._SY550_.jpg":[550,390]})
... of cynical complacency and "one-party rule", in a seedy small town in a turbulent province of a sprawling nation with a long history of racial violence and ethnic cleansing, in the year of a fraudulent election managed 'from the top', a pogrom planned and executed by local officials results in the imprisonment of a young mother on trumped-up charges. She is, of course, of the persecuted minority religion and ethnic group, who have been intimidated by decades of persecution. The ambitious local "party boss" has the entire corrupt police and judicial system in his pocket; under the one-party national administration (executive, legislative & judicial), he stands to gain by 'convicting' whomever he can, and his methods are familiar: terrified informants who will accuse whomever he points to, the hypocritical appeal of 'law and order' to the ruling ethnic majority, interrogations leading to false confessions, and good old-fashioned "show trials". But this time, the unjustly accused young woman decides to fight back ...
That's the story told in "American Violet". The young mother is named Dee Roberts in the film. Her ethnic minority? She's African-American. The seedy community is called Melody, Texas. The story, however, is almost fact-for-fact the true tale of events in Hearne, Texas, USA. The real-life young woman is Regina Kelly; you can see her in the flesh on YouTube and read about her plight on numerous websites, just by googling her name. She was aided in her courageous stand against racist injustice by the ACLU, and her case - Kelly v. Paschall - is discussed on an ACLU web page. In the film and in reality, the case resulted in a small victory and some modest changes in the judicial rules of Texas.
Actress Nicole Beharie performs the role of Dee Roberts perfectly, humanely, convincingly. Indeed, all the acting in this film is first rate, despite which the film is not an artistic masterpiece by any means. It doesn't aim at artistry; it aims at conviction, and that it achieves. The bare facts are so disturbing and concerning that drama seems insignificant. Hey, I can tell you it was gripping -- pardon my personal touch here -- because my wife didn't ask me to pause the DVD even once to answer nature's call!
Other reviewers have noted the issues of drug abuse, and of the abuse of 'drug control' as a tool of racism and racial profiling. The film isn't really about drug crimes, which are real and catastrophic in America and its neighbors, and which involve white communities as well as colored. It's about the perversion of a justice system by a perverted worldview.
Oh yeah, the Iron Curtain? That was Churchill's metaphor originally, remember? It was a brilliant metaphor for the despicable cynicism of Stalinist tyranny. It's a metaphor here also, for the pervasive bigotry that still makes a mockery of America's ideal, that 'all men are created equal.' There was no physical 'iron curtain' in the USSR, nor around Hearne, Texas. Ironically, however, a physical iron curtain -- a metal wall hundreds of miles long -- is right now under construction along one border of the Land of the Free. Founding father Thomas Jefferson argued that the validity of the "social compact" theory of government depended inviolably on the right and opportunity of every individual to choose his place of residence, thereby ratifying his acceptance of the compact. Long Tom is surely rolling in his grave.
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