Four Little Girls DVD

There are many remarkable things about Four Little Girls, Spike Lee's first foray into the documentary format. This striking, beautifully realised film has one thing in common with those of Ken Burns: the major event in this documentary is not seen on camera. Except for four quick glimpses of black-and-white autopsy photos, the picture stays clear from the bombing itself. Lee remains with the faces, the girls' friends, families, and the historic figures of the era. They've all grown up since the bombing but their memories haven't faded. The vital facts of the case... are certainly here: the troubled history of Birmingham, Alabama, the court proceedings, friends' last contact with the girls. What touches us deeper, though, are those witnesses telling us of living through the core era of segregation and bigotry: a father explaining to his child why she can't have a sandwich in a cafeteria and a woman offering up tears of past events. There's even an interview with George Wallace, the prince of segregation, that belongs in a David Lynch feature. Lee's film asserts that the bombing energised the civil rights movement and when the voice of America, Walter Cronkite, echoes those sentiments, you believe he may have it right. --Doug Thomas [show more]

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