Director Raoul Peck sheds light on the obscure (and complex) historical topic of heirs’ land loss in his documentary “Silver Dollar Road,” a film that’s educational, painful, and infuriating. By documenting one family’s fight against oppression and injustice, the film becomes a story of resistance, resilience, and a celebration of heritage.
For generations, a spacious waterfront property in North Carolina has been passed down in the Reels family. Known as Silver Dollar Road, the area attracted the attention of wealthy developers with an eye for destroying the beauty that made it so beloved to the Reels. When the family refuses to move, they are harassed and attacked by real estate investors, which leads them into a fierce battle to save their land.
Based on the 2019 ProPublica article “Kicked Off The Land: by Lizzie Presser, Peck focuses his story on Mamie Ellison and her niece Kim Duhon, two women who refuse to back down when it comes to their family’s rightful ownership of land that belonged to their ancestors (who legally purchased it after the Civil War). Things become even more heated when Mamie’s brothers Melvin and Lecurtis are wrongfully imprisoned for their defiant refusal to be pushed off their property. This lands the two men in jail, after which Kim and Mamie made it their mission to get them out.
It’s infuriating to learn that Melvin and Lecurtis suffered the injustice of spending almost a decade behind bars, especially when they had every right to stay on their own land. It’s a story of the ways the legal system has been (and continues to be) exploited as a way for the wealthy to steal land from its rightful owners. Even sadder is that these stories of property loss are something that tends to run through minority families as well as others that have not been treated fairly by the system.
Throughout the film, racism rears its ugly head as the Reels family is harassed through lawsuits, petty revenge violence, and acts of vandalism. When those types of attacks aren’t enough, they’re further besieged by the financial and social barriers of the justice system.
It’s a complicated legal story, but the film stumbles because it manages to be both too detailed and yet not detailed enough when talking about the lawsuits. It’s also repetitive and can feel exhausting. This isn’t enough to cause the documentary to completely stall, however. By utilizing historical photos and newspaper clippings, talking one-on-one with the families and attorneys, and including gorgeous, sweeping shots of the land at issue, Peck creates a total package with his film. “Silver Dollar Road” not only exposes an issue that’s been mostly unexplored in modern media, but it should spark more research and discussion on the topic.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 