In a way it would have been better if this film was terribly made, because then nobody would pay attention to its horrible message.<br /><br />To talk about the good, the cinematography was well done. Some of the shots of the landscape and sky were breathtaking. Though the lack of a decent budget shows, the talent of the film crew is able to overcome that.<br /><br />However, despite the talent that went into the production, I cannot give the movie a higher score, because of its intolerable message.<br /><br />This movie purports to show the mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of white men. In some aspects this is certainly helpful. It is good to remember the horrors we have inflicted on others, to guard us against doing so again.<br /><br />But the movie falls into propaganda with its heavy-handed treatment of its characters. The noble Nunu, an African who zealously follows the paganism of her ancestors, is presented as a saint without flaw. Meanwhile, her mulatto son, Joe, a faithful catholic, is unloving, murderous, and a traitor to his people.<br /><br />This is not a movie in which all people are shown as corrupted, fallen beings. This is a movie in which all African Pagans are savage heroes, and all whites are licentious hypocritical Christians. The white characters are never anything other than cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional scapegoats for all the ills of the Africans. I don't even want to get into the unspoken insinuation that it's Joe's white blood that has corrupted him.<br /><br />Now, you might say I'm being unfair. After all, were there not corrupt priests, slave owners who raped their slaves, and traitorous mulattoes? Undoubtedly. But this movie never gives us a hint that there is anything but those things. This movie gives us no reason to think not all priests aren't racists, that not all slave owners are rapists.<br /><br />Furthermore, the movie forces us to associate good Africans with paganism, and evil whites and traitorous African Americans with Christianity. Joe kills his mother because she throws away his necklace of Mary, and because the priest tells him his mother is the devil. Shola doesn't join the "good" side until she attends the pagan ritual in the caves.<br /><br />Not to mention the portrayal of Africa as paradise, where nothing bad ever happened to anyone. No, before whites enslaved them, there was certainly no murder or rape among the Africans. Not to say it was as bad as slavery, but the movie's equation of Africa with heaven is ridiculous.<br /><br />That the movie ends with the slaves slaughtering the slave owners shows the depravity of the movie. They have unfortunately agreed with the philosophy of Farakkhan and others who think that going back to Africa, and cutting off any connection with other races, is the correct path.<br /><br />In the end it is a movie that argues that outwardly choosing a religion makes you either an evil person or a good one, and that the correct way to respond to injustice is with revenge.