Order of Mythbusters
The most dramatic moment in the screening of Margaret Brown’s highly anticipated “The Order of Myths” at The Saenger Theatre Thursday, July 31, came not during but immediately following the film. The lights came up, the director and four participants took the stage, and microphones were turned on for what many anticipated would be the main event: the question and answer period.
While thunderous applause erupted throughout the crowded theater when the film began by emphasizing that Mobile’s Mardi Gras predates that of New Orleans, the response at the end was a standing ovation that was not unanimous, and when the audience was encouraged to ask questions, most viewers fidgeted like middle schoolers who haven’t done their homework and are afraid the teacher will call on them.
While a few people worked up the courage to address the crowd and those on stage, the response overall was muted. No one applauded Brown as an activist; no one denounced her as a troublemaker. Partially, perhaps people were afraid of sharing what they really think. But I also feel that was a tribute to the strength of this film. Rather than polarizing, it made everyone reflective. You can tell everyone is choosing their words carefully when they talk about it, and no one has chosen as carefully as Brown herself.
Margaret Brown shows restraint, intelligence, maturity, and sensitivity in “The Order of Myths.” I would go so far as to say that in her ample exposure of many sides of Mardi Gras, she ultimately does not pass judgment. In some cases, it may be implied, but ultimately the viewers can draw their own conclusions.
I think she did a great job of presenting well-chosen footage, and in doing so, giving people around the world and in her own hometown plenty to think about. Perhaps it was her deeply personal feelings about the film’s participants that lead her to omit cheap shots and easy targets. Almost every time a negative image is shown or explored, you will find some redemption later in the film. Neither time does she tell us what to think; she simply says, “Look at this.”
Brown said that in many places where the film has screened, viewers have remarked that they saw their own communities reflected in the film. Ours is not the only town with debutantes; ours is not the only community with less-than-impeccable race relations. These issues are enormous and complicated; they are most assuredly not simply black and white. Mardi Gras is just one lens through which one artist chose to examine them.
A documentary that is at once universal and highly personal, “The Order of Myths” is a fairly restrained look at what can be some incendiary issues.
I am reviewing a documentary about Mardi Gras, and not Mardi Gras itself; my conclusions about the film are that it is an artistic success. Some people may not be proud of some of the aspects of Margaret Brown’s film, while others feel proud of tradition and of our town, which is on display looking lovely, and sometimes not as lovely.
But everyone should feel proud that a local woman has accomplished a documentary that was accepted at Sundance and at film festivals around the world, and that nothing less than the New York Times called it “Wise and soberly affecting.” We should also be proud that we can watch a film about ourselves and be open minded enough to discuss it, that we are progressive enough to embrace a work that is sometimes painfully honest.
Since the Press-Register already described the film’s final moments in detail, I don’t have to feel guilty about spoiling it, and I present those last minutes as a truly apt summation of the film, its attitudes, and ours as viewers. The ending was a stunner, and as deft and witty a coda as any I have seen in any film.
After what seems to be the end of the film, a memorable elderly gentleman reappears a final time from his elegant armchair, whence he has been discussing many aspects of Mardi Gras throughout the film. He says to the unseen interviewer, “I will tell you something I will not permit you to record,” and the screen falls blank again. Brown pulls the rug – or perhaps that is the train – right out from under us, and it was a masterful touch.
That is the real end to the discussion that this film raises, which is that there is no end to that discussion, not now, and maybe never, and that the real debate still takes place behind closed doors on every level of society. For a moment, Margaret Brown peeked inside, and hopefully we will all have something to take back and discuss further. I would love to see the real response from the myriad camps that showed up in this film, but I have a feeling that, after this experience, no one will speak quite so freely on camera again.
Contact Asia Frey at afrey@lagniappemobile.com.
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