On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the City of Philadelphia and the Black Liberation organization, MOVE came to a deadly climax. This dramatic tragedy unfolds through an extraordinary visual record previously withheld from the public.
[Osder] cuts between news footage of the events as they unfurled and testimony from hearings held afterward to create a stark, nonjudgmental portrait of an incident that probably needn't have happened.
[This historic footage -- from newsreels, TV stations once-live coverage, from several investigating commissions -- has been edited, brilliantly into a coherent, important political film.
Apart from the score and the very occasional basic intertitle to help us along, all we see and hear is footage from the day. We're immersed in the present of this world.
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
December 06, 2013
Brilliantly edited, the film moves back and forth in time, first tracking the events leading up to the confrontation through news reports of the day.
Let The Fire Burn is an incendiary documentary that uses archival footage to weave a compelling, all-important tale of tragedy bred from anger and misunderstanding.
Mesmerizing and provocative, Burn creates an unnerving atmosphere of troubling decisions on both sides of the conflict, permitting the viewer to understand the thought process that went into the explosive endgame.
Director Jason Osder's grieving account of the deadly police assault on the MOVE collective's fortified Philadelphia row house works small, continuous miracles with a variety of existing footage.
