Review of 4 Little Girls (1997) by Edith N — 13 Sep 2006

Spike Lee is a little too enamoured of the extreme closeup. Badly-framed shots seriously detract from what is an otherwise excellent film.

The girls aren't quite as little as they're always implied to be. On 15 September, 1963, Carol Denise McNair was 11, Cynthia Wesley was 14, Carole Robertson was 14, and Addie Mae Collins was 15. Carol McNair was actually a classmate of Condoleeza Rice. I really think they're seen as so young because they were completely innocent. They were going to church. That's all they did--they went to church at a controversial parish, and so they died.

Spike Lee uses their deaths almost as a framework upon which to hang the story of racism in Birmingham, which has more to it than one bombing--as you no doubt learned in school, Birmingham was known at the time as "Bombingham." What was surprising about this one is that it was a church--which had been bombed before!--in time for Sunday services. And, of course, the four girls died.

The film is well-paced. It starts slowly, telling about the general atmosphere and about the lives of the children. The pace picks up the closer we get to the event; as we hear about the event, the length each person spends onscreen is shorter and we are given more information. Then it slows again as we get to the leisurely path to justice the case took.

The American justice system is flawed, Gods know. However, one of the great triumphs of the 20th and now 21st century is that these men who committed these acts of great cowardice are finally, finally being made responsible for their actions--unless they are dead, in which case I can but hope there is indeed a God to judge.