The Voyage of La Amistad: A Quest for Freedom

• On the morning of June 28, 1839, the schooner La Amistad set sail from Havana, Cuba, with a cargo that included 53 Africans who had been abducted from Sierra Leone and sold into slavery in violation of international law. Unaware of their fate and fearing they would be killed, the Africans revolted, sparing only two crew members to guide the ship eastward to their home. After a two-month voyage on

An epic journey of one mans fight for his life and his freedom. This story of courage and determination is presented by a director whose vision goes to the heart of the story and the soul of its characters. Once again steven spielberg has created a film event that will never be forgotten. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 02/13/2007 Starring: Morgan Freeman Djimon Hounsou Run time: 155 minutes Rating: R Director: Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg's most simplistic, sanitized history les! son, Amistad, explores the symbolic 1840s trials of 53 West Africans following their bloody rebellion aboard a slave ship. For most of Schindler's List (and, later, Saving Private Ryan) Spielberg restrains himself from the sweeping narrative and technical flourishes that make him one of our most entertaining and manipulative directors. Here, he doesn't even bother trying, succumbing to his driving need to entertain with beautiful images and contrived emotion. He cheapens his grandiose motives and simplifies slavery, treating it as cut- and-dry genre piece. Characters are easy Hollywood stereotypes--"villains" like the Spanish sailors or zealous abolitionists are drawn one-dimensionally and sneered upon. And Spielberg can't suppress his gifted eye, undercutting normally ugly sequences, such as the terrifying slave passage, which is shot as a gorgeous, well-lit composition. At its core, Amistad is a traditional courtroom drama, centered by ! a tired, clichéd narrative: a struggling, idealistic young l! awyer (M atthew McConaughey) fighting the crooked political system and saving helpless victims. Worse yet, Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history. --Dave McCoyOn the morning of June 28, 1839, the schooner La Amistad set sail from Havana, Cuba, with a cargo that included 53 Africans who had been abducted from Sierra Leone and sold into slavery in violation of international l! aw. Unaware of their fate and fearing they would be killed, the Africans revolted, sparing only two crew members to guide the ship eastward to their home. After a two-month voyage on a zigzag course, La Amistad was finally captured at Long Island, New York, where the Africans were jailed and charged with piracy and murder.