Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till (2012)

• 90%
• 2012
• Rob Underhill

There have been numerous treatments, in various media, of the horrific 1955 murder in Money, Mississippi, of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till, but none like this concise, stunning dramatization in which actor-writer Mike Wiley plays all 36 roles--black, white, male, female, young, and old. What might sound like a distracting stunt is in fact the film's distinctive strength. Relying on subtleties of acting rather than heavy makeup, with seamless digital compositing in multi-character scenes, Wiley's tour de force defamiliarizes the material with startling effectiveness and compels us to get under the skins of all the major players in the tragic events.