Yeah this movie is as uncomfortable as you think it would be. It’s an adaptation of a play that adapted a book, the latter two both being written by white men and their perspective on what black people must imagine the Bible and Heaven to be. It does have some interesting cinematography, particularly when they connect the sunday school with the events of the Bible. The spirituals are nice, but they’re concert as opposed to authentic. Which is where this film really goes wrong. It tries to be the ‘authentic’ representation of a black heaven and a black god through the eyes of a white man. Instead, it argues that black people were at their best when on a plantation. Certainly an interesting movie that dives into the problems with racism in cinema in the 1930s.

2.5/5: I loved that they painted donkeys to be zebras

Yeah this movie is as uncomfortable as you think it would be. It’s an adaptation of a play that adapted a book, the latter two both being written by white men and their perspective on what black people must imagine the Bible and Heaven to be. It does have some interesting cinematography, particularly when they connect the sunday school with the events of the Bible. The spirituals are nice, but they’re concert as opposed to authentic. Which is where this film really goes wrong. It tries to be the ‘authentic’ representation of a black heaven and a black god through the eyes of a white man. Instead, it argues that black people were at their best when on a plantation. Certainly an interesting movie that dives into the problems with racism in cinema in the 1930s.

2.5/5: I loved that they painted donkeys to be zebras