Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

ironhorse_iv This film is the older known surviving print that was produced and directed by Oscar Micheaux. He is considered to be the first African American director of feature films. The movie was lost for a long time. The movie was found in late 70's, when a single print of the film was discovered in Spain. Still, the movie suffers much due to old age. The film is in rough state when it was discovered. Scars and scratches are all over the film. A brief sequence in the middle of the film was also lost. Only four of the original English inter titles survived, the rest having been replaced with Spanish inter titles when the film was distributed there. Much of the film is still incomplete as many scenes depicting abuse and murder were excised by the film board prior to release. The reasons of this was because they deem it too provocative after the 1919 Chicago race riots. The film focus on the physical, psychological and economic repression of the African American to the point that it was called a race film even if the movie wasn't all produce by all black cast. Produced primarily in northern cities. The target audience consisted primarily of poor southern blacks and southerners who had migrated northward. The problem with most race films is the fact that it rarely treated the subjects of social injustice and race relations. We see black people suffering but we don't see the races trying to heal the conflict. Its only goal to bring upon more anger against white people. Hints the controversial. This movie tries not to be one of those. The ending is all about healing but still you can hear the be proud of your race and be fearful of the others undertones in the film. Still, there is so much from Oscar Micheaux that remains lost. I hope that as the years go on, we'll be able to uncover more of his work. It's still a wonderful resource for those of us who are old film buffs and also interested in the African American contribution to cinema. Still the film is so hard to get through. Within our gates is the story of an educated Southern black school teacher Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer). She looks for a few days escape from the South after being abandoned by her lover. She plans to visit her cousin Alma in the North. While there, she is in effort to raise money for her near bankrupt school. The movie use flashbacks to point out the faults of the nation using the Landry's family as example. Its dark scenes of lynching, murder and rape attempt that is hard to watch. It does deconstructed the white ideology that lynching was to punish black men for alleged sexual assaults against white women, but also feed the fears the idea that all black women get rape by white men which isn't true. The utilization of cross cutting techniques in the melodramatic form with the rape and lynching is powerful. The ending twist is a bit shocking, but well written. Often regarded in the context of Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, which had appeared five years earlier. Critics have considered Micheaux's project as a response to Griffith to the point, that Micheaux took the film's name from a line in Griffith's film. It suggested that people should not harm one another, lest they be harmed. Micheaux's idea mirrors Griffith ending of North and South marriage plot in the sense that rather than all white reunion, Michaeux's film ends with a united sophisticated African American nation. Micheaux didn't blame only whites for the poverty of rural blacks, but criticized African Americans who helped to perpetuate their condition for personal gain that Griffith's movie fail to show. While Griffith portrayed black men largely as humorous objects or dim witted caricatures. Micheaux use dialect in order to be derogatory but to express the desire of a poor uneducated black man to provide his children with the means to a better life than his own. Many whites believed that African Americans were too lazy or stupid to want an education at the time. Michaeux was still wrong in portraying light skinned blacks as well educated man. He use them to represent the African American race in Dr. Vivian. While he portray dark skinned as dumb or corrupt people like in Efrem. Michaeux did anger black churches at the time due to his mocking of them with the character of Old Ned, an Uncle Tom type character. Micheaux viewed traditional black religiosity and the men who believe its dogma as dangerous to the freedom and advancement of African Americans. No matter what the controversial, it's a good movie from the Harlem Renaissance era. Give it a watch.

Boba_Fett1138 It's funny how this movie is mostly being known for just one thing; the fact that it's the oldest, still existing movie, (that we know off of course) that got directed by an Afro-American film-makers. But this of course in itself is really not saying much about the actual movie. It doesn't say anything about its quality or about its pioneering innovativeness.Still fact remains that this is an interesting piece of history. It's a account on film, on how life for the average colored person was back in the early 20th century. It's not only that but it's also a view on how life for them should be like. A life without racism and a life in which they get treated equally, also by the tight high upper white class. It's purely a movie shot from the black man and woman's perspective, which makes this movie an unique watch really.It's a movie with mostly a cast consisting out of Afro-American actors. One thing that strike me about this was that those actors on film did not looked Afro-American at all. You would expect in a black & white person that an Afro-American would appear as black but in fact their faces and bodies often look more white than black, on film. Perhaps this is also part of the reason why film-makers in the old days every so often used blackface-actors, rather than actual Afro-Americans for their movies. A lot of directors from the early days of cinema get now day slammed for not using actual Afro-Americans in their movies but perhaps there were more and other, more movie-technical, reasons for this, rather than simply being racist toward our colored fellow man or woman.As for the actual movie itself; it's pretty good. It has a great story, that of course was considered to be quite controversial for its time, due to its subject and the fact that it got made by an almost entirely black cast and crew. It showed how things really were at the time, for the Afro-Americans but it's also a movie with a message and one with hope for better times, that in reality wouldn't come for the Afro-Americans until decades later.Considering the fact that this movie didn't got made with the backing of studio's or big money spenders and experienced people within the business, the movie is all the more impressive to view. It's simple a well made and nicely constructed film, that keeps its story flowing really well at all times and keeps the movie a good and interesting one to watch.A surprisingly good early 'blackcinema' movie.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Michael Morrison Oscar Micheaux is one of my motion picture heroes.With courage and determination, he set out to make movies for and about black people when it wasn't otherwise much done.He was a pioneer in independent film-making, raising money in the most unusual places and unusual ways.He deserves a lot of praise ... but, alas, his results were too often disappointing."Within Our Gates" has a lot of potential, but most of it is unmet.The acting is pretty good, but the camera work and editing are lacking; and the script misses badly.The story is a good one, and the school that is at the heart of a major subplot has a real-life counterpart: Professor Laurance Jones created a school for the black people of the piney woods near Jackson, Mississippi, in the very earliest years of the 20th century.Professor Jones' story is incredibly inspiring and I urge everyone who cares about spirit and courage to take a look (http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/vol/21991.shtml is one source).Micheaux and Jones have somewhat parallel lives, though Jones ultimately achieved recognition in his lifetime.Micheaux should have, and I am grateful beyond words that at least his films are finally being seen by a wider audience.They are flawed, yes, but they present two stories we all need to know about: The actual topic of the movie, and that of Micheaux himself.The ending of this movie is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. It seems to come out of thin air, and I fear it must have been hastily tacked on in order to placate someone. Too bad, but still the movie is historically valuable.This is added June 10, 2015: There is a print available at YouTube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1E0NrcnwAEI haven't watched more than a few seconds, but so far it's a terrible print.

JohnHowardReid The best word to describe this film is "amateurish". While it does have a central focus, the muddled, confused and confusing plot proceeds in fits and starts. Characters drop in and out of the narrative seemingly at random and sometimes change outlook right in the middle of a scene.Worse still, the film has been edited with a proverbial meat-ax. Odd bits and pieces of irrelevant action are often spliced without rhyme or reason into the movie, further adding to the viewer's difficulties in following the plot.Despite all obstacles, however, individual scenes do succeed. The lynch sequence exerts a terrible power because—whether by design or accident—it looks like an actual newsreel event.Acting too is mighty variable. Evelyn Preer does good work as the unsettled heroine, Bernice Ladd makes a forceful bigot, and there are two outstanding actors among the ranks of obvious amateurs in the support cast: E.G. Tatum and the uncredited Old Ned.Which brings me to the most amazing aspect of Micheaux' vision. "Within Our Gates" is a cry for justice, but no apologia. In fact it often seems to go out of its way to present a surprisingly warts and all take on African-Americans. The two men just mentioned, for instance, enact self-seeking traitors (and do so brilliantly). The little spiv, Jack Chenault, is a despicable criminal, and even the second female lead seems somewhat unsympathetic (especially in the film's original uncensored version which has unfortunately been lost).