14th review – Ava DuVernay’s galvanizing documentary is a remarkable achievement

New York film festival: the director has made a fascinating and troubling companion piece to her Netflix documentary 13th, which takes a fiery look at American injustice

It feels at once like the blink of an eye and an eternity since Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th arrived on Netflix, a month before the election of Donald Trump to his first term as president. The intervening decade has more or less borne out the film’s thesis on the enduring specter of white supremacy in American life: that a clause within the 13th amendment abolishing chattel slavery – that involuntary servitude could be used as punishment for a crime – was immediately and continually exploited to criminalize black people, mass incarceration thus being the modern incarnation of America’s original sin.

The Oscar-nominated film, which saw a surge in viewership during the protests of 2020, has remained both a time capsule of late Obama-era moral clarity and, arguably, the acclaimed director’s best picture. At least, until now – 14th, DuVernay’s sequel, of sorts, soon also to arrive on Netflix, is just as lucid and galvanizing as its predecessor, with an updated, more pressing urgency befitting a democracy in distress.

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