Review of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North

Recognition, A Proper Accounting, Reconciliation, Redemption...Katrina Browne's

Director/producer: Katrina Browne Writers: Katrina Browne, Alla Kovgan Executive producer: Elizabeth Delude-Dix Director of photography: Liz Dory Co-producer: Juanita Brown Editor: Alla Kovgan I solid information, from a stranger in the next seat, at another film, that Traces Of The Trade was picked up by PBS today. I am rarely moved to tears, and yet mysteriously the completeness of this film, as a work of historical reconciliation, and revelation of fact, and serious inquiry into the nature of forgiveness, absolutely floored me, and tears of gratitude ran down my face for the last three minutes. The circular logic, of the piece, the way she started with her intimate family portraits, and the pretty past, in the perfect New England town, of Bristol, Rhode Island takes a sudden sidestep, into a Grandmother's revelation that the family money and power had come from the slave trade. Local historians anxious to profit from homes as museums, didn't want this story to be told, and the local population, all descended from the entire town's profitable relationship with the DeWolf family, and the slave trade. Katrina Browne's personal narration, is deft, and plainly delivered, as she starts the process of revelation, of her family's past, as the premier slave trading family in the United States, whose activities continued long after the slave trade was abolished by Thomas Jefferson, and continued under his blind eye. Katrina writes her living relatives, and proposes a journey of understanding along the route of the triangular trade, seemingly invented by her distant ancestor George DeWolf, to whom she bears a more than striking resemblance. The response is low, but nine family members agree to go, all Ivy League educated, save one who is well educated none the less. As they first cope with denial of their culpability, they later can't deny the horrific damage and evil perpetrated in their family past. From Ghana, and seaside holding forts, where the chapel of the Episcopal Church sat right over the dungeons, to Cuba, and back to Rhode Island, the DeWolf clan members cope with their self perceptions, and the perceptions of latter day victims of the old slave trade. The group displays remarkable self awareness, and remarkable willingness to communicate with any stake holder in the healing process. The historical information regarding the slave trade is remarkable in depth, and reveals a glossed over section of our history, revealing that the North was easily as culpable in the evil doing, that was the trade. In the DeWolf family there had long been a no- talk policy regarding the roots of their wealth, and the film maker states that it had been there all along to see, if you knew where to look. This film, has a fresh, almost hand held camera look, and there are great images peppered though out. It is very plain, and pure, with the speakers talking over traffic, and the sounds of the Cuban countryside, at least I thought I could hear the bugs. Katrina's painstaking perusal of a very painful wound on the community of Bristol, delivered as a sermon at the family church, results in a rare ceremony of healing, that every person there, chooses to be blessed by. This is a rare foray into the realm of reconciliation of all things past, and currently in need of a great healing strategy. She has made a thoughtful, and beautiful start on a long process. Dayle Record From Sundance January 24, 2008

Posted on 01/25/08 by: Oyeah 02:41 AM