South

The starting point for Chantal Akerman’s exemplary documentary is the abhorrent murder which took place in the late 1990s in Jasper, Texas. Three white men shackled a black man, beat him to death, and dragged his body behind their truck. The victim was a musician; the murderers, members of a radical right-wing organization. Akerman speaks to locals about previous crimes, their positions on human rights, and the rise of white supremacist movements. But it seems as though Jasper’s Afro-American residents would rather contemplate the cursed history of the region than protest against the recent crime, as if memories of slavery have the power to reduce violence in the present.