This is not a film about going anywhere. Cobb and Dee truly humanize the plight of sharecroppers and flesh out the story A SUMMER TRAGEDY by Arna Bontemp, the Louisiana African American writer. He won numerous awards for this story in 1932.
An elderly couple have reached an impasse, they can no longer take care of each other or the land, and their sharecropper boss is forcing them off the land. They put on their Sunday clothes, and spoil each other and prepare for their great migration, their trip to the "promised land", their own death.
As they say goodbye to their life's work, to their friends and to each other, you get a real sense of the tragedy of the Great Depression and the plight of any African American caught in the vicious grip of sharecropping in the South. But there's no bitterness, no caustic diatribe to detract from the beautiful story of love and compassion these two characters have for each other. The story is one of redemption, not suicide, because they make the only decision that could be made and they make it together.
An elderly couple have reached an impasse, they can no longer take care of each other or the land, and their sharecropper boss is forcing them off the land. They put on their Sunday clothes, and spoil each other and prepare for their great migration, their trip to the "promised land", their own death.
As they say goodbye to their life's work, to their friends and to each other, you get a real sense of the tragedy of the Great Depression and the plight of any African American caught in the vicious grip of sharecropping in the South. But there's no bitterness, no caustic diatribe to detract from the beautiful story of love and compassion these two characters have for each other. The story is one of redemption, not suicide, because they make the only decision that could be made and they make it together.