SXSW Film Review: Alt-Right: Age of Rage

Adam Bhala Lough's doc, Alt-Right: Age of Rage, won't greatly illuminate the workings of white supremacy for the already attuned, but it will acquaint casual viewers with a fuller view of supremacists and their ideological opposition.

The timeline leads up to, and just beyond, the infamous August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., where an angered white supremacist killed protester Heather Heyer, 32, with his car. Our 45th president, of course, makes occasional appearances, including the much-discussed violence "on many sides" false parallel.

Lough's film takes up a somewhat problematic ideological pit-fight tinge that's never fully worked out. One on end: Daryle Lamont Jenkins, a black man and Antifa member who has dedicated his life to the elimination of white nationalism, and journalist Mark Potok, who works for the Southern Poverty Law Center. On the other end lives buttoned-up white nationalist Richard Spencer and his more pretentious associate Jared Taylor, founder of American Renaissance, a supremacy-based online publication.

Lough's film finds its ultimate direction through journalist Mark Potok's balancing-beam policy debate of “quarantine vs. inoculation,” i.e., the dilemma of whether to talk about white supremacists or ignore them completely. Lough’s choice is clear, and has created in his serviceable doc an informational baseline for people who've leaned out of the struggle.

Alt-Right: Age of Rage, earnest and thoughtful, feels a bit undercooked from one very particular standpoint: It fails to get into the uncomfortable, historically thick and gnarly bits about the racism itself. There's much about the near-ubiquitous utility of social media and the internet as weaponry. However, there's a lot of "hows" and not nearly enough "whys." Lough's mistake within his character study is to presume the racism is self-evident, which is a dangerous thought, even if innocuous in intent.

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Alt-Right: Age of Rage

Documentary Spotlight, World Premiere
Monday, March 12, 9:15pm, Vimeo Theater
Tuesday, March 13, 8:30pm, Alamo Ritz 2