Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Film TV Update: Mardi Gras Doc 'The Order of Myths' 9 p.m. Tonight on NPT
Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 4:00 PM
In honor of Fat Tuesday, sit down with a bowl of gumbo and watch one of 2008's best films tonight on NPT-Channel 8. Margaret Brown's excellent documentary The Order of Myths delves into the country's oldest Mardi Gras celebration, the 300-year-old festivities in Mobile, Alabama. Among its three centuries of tradition is a thorny issue: the celebration remains completely segregated, with separate parties, parades and balls for blacks and whites.
Perhaps because Brown is a Mobile native, the doc comes off not as preachy or dismissive but as a warm, richly populated human comedy where pretty much everyone gets a say--and they don't always say what you'd expect. It's one of the best films of recent years about the complexities of life in the post-civil-rights South, and it ends of a note of pure celebration. It airs 9 p.m. tonight on Channel 8 as part of PBS's Independent Lens series.
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