For nearly three decades, the name “Latasha Harlins” has been called almost exclusively in the context of the 1992 LA updating. but A love song for latasha On Netflix, a new short film by director Sophia Nahli Ellison, refuses to tell viewers that every protest, every rebellion and every hashtag that has been born out of the unjust killing of African Americans was a very real human life loss . And for those closest to Harlins, the pain of that loss never gave up.
Hurlins was shot and killed when she was 15, when the owner of a convenience store named Soo Su claimed she was stealing orange juice. (In fact, Harlins had the money to pay for the juice in her hand when she died, and police determined she was shopping.) But that’s not what Allison’s film is about. Instead, she presents a picture Harlin was using of the words of her closest friend Shinis and her best friend Ty, who go by their first names in the film — and a collection of cool, beautiful scenes.
These scenes involve actors, but they don’t feel anything that you sometimes see using in documentaries. Social dilemma). They are too beautiful for this. As she recounts the story of the day she and Latasha met – when she was being bullied by a group of boys in the pool, and Latasha came to her rescue – we see a woman calmly in the pool. The camera is swimming, and the water is slowly washing. Later, when Ty and Shynees describe the day in which Latasha was killed, the screen becomes a series of animated patterns, shapes and colors that speak to the sentiments of testimony. You watch an infinite loop for the feeling of watching videos of Latasha’s death over and over again; Scribbles to dark feelings after a roar of anger. Then, in the final third of the film, Ty himself finally appears on screen, and it is all the more powerful as Allison awaits us.
A love song for latasha It is experimental, it is artistic, and it is a tribute to a life that was stolen, not only from Harlin, but from those who loved him. Although the runtime is only 19 minutes, Allison manages to bring Harlins alive in such a way that the media surrounding his death — and the violence that followed — could never happen.
“People just know that she was a young black girl who cost $ 1.79,” Ty says. “They don’t know who he was as a person. They don’t know.”
Hopefully, now some more people do.
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Source: decider.com
