All In: The Fight for Democracy
AMAZON
With political turmoil on a global scale, one of the largest conversations regarding politics over recent years has been that of voter suppression. From the history of the unfair political act to its role it plays in modern politics, voter suppression is a topic with plenty of depth to it, which is comprehensively explored within the new documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy. Through a mixture of talking head interviews, animated sequences and on-the-ground footage from local elections, the film looks to fully capture the subject, not only educating the audience but also making a call to action for future social change.
Taking a page out of 13th, another incredibly impactful and important political documentary, the importance of the subject matter mixed with the craft of filmmaking produces a truly worthwhile viewing experience that succeeds in nearly every sense. When introducing the audience to a new concept that is layered and complex, films often struggle to find the right way to engage the audience, as the film has to not only introduce the audience to the concepts but also reach the deeper messages of the conversation.
Where some filmmakers such as Adam McKay have found the ability to craft these conversations with comedy, capturing real world issues such as voter suppression in a documentary using comedy would simply be disrespectful, and the stakes are high enough that dramatising the story in the same vein of a film like Boys State would also be inappropriate. All In: The Fight for Democracy, instead, crafts a captivating narrative constantly built out of powerful yet undeniable facts.
The film clearly has a message that is emotional and powerful, yet having such a strong and well crafted factual backbone makes the documentary feel unbiased and indisputable. The film isn't an angry cry into the void; it is a well prepared and genuinely enlightening explanation of a fundamental flaw within the American Political System, which doesn't rely on raw emotions surrounding the current political administration to captivate audiences. Instead, any current emotions the audience carry surrounding current political parties will only serve as fuel to the fire within the film making the call to action all the more impactful. Due to the focus on facts, the film also holds its own against audiences with political opinions that would tend to go against conversations such as this one as the film lays a undeniable argument leaving the only real rebuttal being that of racism.
Where the content of the film is indubitably solid, the actual layout of the feature can't say the same. From Stacey Abrams’s photo finish battle for governor of Georgia against Brian Kemp to animated sequences transporting audiences throughout the history of American politics to talking head interviews explaining various perspectives and personal experiences with the main subject matter, All In: The Fight for Democracy is a film with a clearly full plate when it comes to messages. How the film bounces between focuses can feel overwhelming at times.
The documentary will set off on one focused piece of the larger conversation surrounding voter suppression only to become distracted by another side topic only to then jump to an entirely other point before coming back to the original point to finish it off. The end result, at times, feels like a messy jigsaw puzzle. While the content is so valuable and strong that this doesn't come close to ruining the what the film has to offer, it does suffer to a point as a film feeling longer than it is and more complicated than it needed to be.
Regardless, All In: The Fight for Democracy is yet another film on the long list of documentaries that is making 2020 one of the strongest years for the genre in recent memory, with this film standing out as being one of the most important and impactful from that list. This is a mature and well thought out comprehensive look at the subject of voter suppression that is powerful and beyond relevant.
