Free State of Jones is a 2016 film by Gary Ross that tells the true story of the birth of the United States of America and the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the first president in the history of the United States of America.
We are in the first part of the second half of the 1800s.
The African-Americans are only and exclusively slaves, treated like beasts and sold like animals.
An inhuman and ineluctable situation beyond which the whites did not want to look and the blacks did not have the courage to go.
But history is made up of small gestures born from below, born perhaps of a single man.
That event was the war that was fought on the ground of what would become the United States of America, while that man was Newton Knight a white man who became what we today would call a conscientious objector.
To escape death or at least the punishment reserved for deserters he took refuge in the swamps where he was welcomed by a small group of African-Americans, slaves who had escaped slavery and who could only find salvation or at least survival in the woods.
It was this encounter that generated the birth of a real company, a small army that gradually became so strong that it defeated the local militia.
It was so impressive the participation of Afro-Americans who dreamed of freedom and white men and women who believed that the color of the skin was only a diversity and not a problem, that in a short time this small and weak army managed to conquer some counties and settle in those areas.
Despite the successes, the group led by Newton was not helped or recognized by the forces of the union.
This led Newton and his brothers to declare the independent nation of Jones, the "Free State of Jones" that gave the film its title.
Then came the declaration of independence, the abolition of slavery and the birth of the United States.
African Americans believed that their suffering would end there and instead it was only the beginning of their terrible suffering.
The KKK arrived, new forms of slavery and unprecedented violence against them arrived, a tangible sign of the failure of Lincoln's good intentions.
To play Newton Knight the always excellent Matthew McCounaghey who also here manages to transform himself and give us a great acting performance.
At his side a not yet famous Mahersala Ali who, at the age of 3 years, would become a double Oscar winner for his performances in Moonlight first and then Green Book, not surprisingly two other films closely related to the racial theme.
A very recommendable film Free State Of Jones, which will hardly enter your top showcase but will easily manage to leave you something, giving you moments of great depth on the theme and dignified drama.
