Tribeca: “Natchez” is a Mesmerizing Nightmare of American History
It’s been said that “history belongs to the victors.” If that’s true, who does the present belong to? What about the future? The Tribeca-premiering Natchez is a documentary about a town that finds itself at the intersection of these questions. Some residents of the town want to reckon with Natchez’s past, present, and future, while others are only interested in reliving the “good ol’ days.” Natchez is a mesmerizing portrait of a town that has been at a crossroads for generations.
courtesy of Tribeca
Natchez, Mississippi, is home to 14,000 people, and it’s one of the oldest European cities in the Mississippi River Valley. Its history also includes the fact that Natchez was far and away the most prevalent slave-trading city in Mississippi. More than that, it was the second-most prevalent slave trading-city in the United States. It’s impossible to tell the story of Natchez without including the role slavery played in its formation, yet many people conveniently leave that out. Natchez thrives on Antebellum tourism, and there’s a clear divide between the information that White and Black guides give during their tours.
Natchez is wholly entrancing. The colors are rich and there’s an undeniable magic to the nature of the south. Sunsets look different. Cotton candy dances in the sky as the burning sun disappears behind the horizon line. Natchez leans into the natural beauty, but also subtly distorts it in a deeply unnerving way. This artistic decision mirrors the way the two versions of Natchez are at odds with each other. You can talk about the beautiful old houses all day long, but if you do, you’re ignoring the long, deep shadows the truth casts upon these spaces. Natchez leans wholly into this unsettling dichotomy in its visual language, giving the film the look of something that more closely resembles a horror movie than a documentary.
courtesy of Tribeca
At the end of the day, Natchez is a horror movie in a way that’s scarier than any ghosts or ghouls. This is the horror of humans who believe they are inherently better than others simply because of the color of their skin. People who believe that discussion of racial segregation is an issue of the past that has no place in the contemporary world. There’s danger in that belief, danger in thinking the past needs to be forgotten. It’s old news, they say. Yet in that same breath, slurs will come out of their mouths when they feel they’re in like-minded company. Natchez captures these people who say they aren’t racist at all, but who also don’t see why Confederate statues need to be taken down.
“If it’s a fairytale, it’s one thing, but if you decide it’s the truth, that can be much more dangerous,” says one of the National Park employees interviewed in the documentary. The truth of history can be distorted by what people want to believe instead of what actually was. Slaves can become “servants.” It’s hard to downplay the impact these revisions have on our collective understanding of the past. Yes, the history of the United States is ugly, but that doesn’t mean we sweep it under the rug. Natchez shows how teaching our history, the real story, can actually unite people more than divide them.
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