^jJortlanò (Observer
N o vem b er 13, 2013
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Page 13
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Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Alberta
North, Portland
Police Power Run Amuck
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‘L et the F ire B urn .’ A Z eitgeist F ilms release
O pinionated
J udge
Documentary “Let the Fire Bum’ painful and riveting
Delbert Africa o f the radical separatist group MOVE is arrested by
Philadelphia police. The archive photo comes from the new documen­
tary “Let the Fire Burn“ by Jason Osder, a painful and riveting account
of police power run horribly run amuck.
by
D arleen O rtega
Sometimes it seems the most appalling
episodes in history are the ones most des­
tined to fade into obscurity. Only if we are
lucky does some skillful writer or filmmaker
find the means to bring such neglected sto­
ries to our attention.
Director Jason Osder spent a decade as­
sembling “Let the Fire Bum,” a documentary
about a shameful event in 1985, in which a
longstanding feud between the city of Phila­
delphia and a radical separatist group of
mostly African Americans called MOVE cul­
minated in a deadly stand-off. When the
group’s members defied attempts to evict
them from their home, police tear-gassed the
group, fired into a house full of women and
children, and then dropped a bomb. The
resulting fire left 61 mostly African American
working families homeless and 11 people
dead, including five children. City officials’
direction to firefighters to “let the fire bum”
becomes a fitting title for Osder’s riveting
account of police power run horribly amuck.
The film, Osder’s first feature, holds us in
the grip of unanswerable questions regard­
ing how such a thing could have happened.
Having interviewed several of the protago­
nists, Osder found that even the passage o f
time did not provide them with illuminating
perspective, so he wisely elected (with the
help o f an exceptionally skilled editor) to tell
the story using the wealth o f archival footage
of the escalating conflict, the final horrifying
confrontation, and the hearings of a commis­
sion convened afterwards to investigate the
events.
The result is appropriately painful and
riveting. A combination of early footage and
later testimony conveys a sense o f how
M OVE’S antagonistic stance sent authorities
into a tailspin. The group attempted to live off
the grid right in the middle o f an urban setting,
eschewing electricity and sanitation service
in favor o f a technology-free, “anarcho-primi-
tivist” lifestyle. MOVE rhetoric (some of it
impressively recited by the group’s children)
denounced “the system” and its attempts to
subjugate them.
Police and city leaders— notably Mayor
Frank Rizzo, making no attempt to temper the
racism that fueled his aggression— quickly
labeled the group a terrorist organization and
set off an escalating series of arrests and
confrontations. Even if you doubt MOVE’S
accounts of beatings in police custody (and
the film doesn’t give you any reason to doubt
those accounts), the sheer number of re-
contiwted
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