The Order of Myths

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Margaret Brown's documentary The Order of Myths examines the social labyrinth of Mardi Gras carnivals in Mobile, Alabama. The oldest celebration of its kind in the country is dominated by two racially segregated organizations that have held separate coronations and parades for over 300 years. To an outsider, the divide, so rigidly defended yet cloaked in hospitality, is an incredibly costumed prism to look at race relations as a whole in America. Brown follows the white queen Helen, an inarticulate but gracious debutante that the film tacitly acknowledges has been elected more due to bloodlines than royal qualities; and the black queen Stephanie, a schoolteacher who is scraping to pay for the elaborate dress and festivities (upwards of $20,000) but holds the tradition in equally high esteem. Adding a layer of unease to the proceedings, both queens know off hand that Helen's direct ancestors were involved with one of the final slave transactions in Mobile, which brought Stephanie's family to this country. Explaining how a black neighborhood now known as "Africatown" was formed, a white woman cautiously recounts the story of a shipful of captured Africans who were forced to flee into the woods while the boat was torched in an effort to destroy evidence.

Despite The Order of Myths' incendiary subject matter, it's an oddly hopeful film. 2007 was the first year that each organization's Mardi Gras royalty visited one another's ceremonies, clearly at the behest of the younger partipants. Each set of royalty is greeted graciously at both events and afterwards, and two of the elders bemoan that scheduling snafus have prevented them from ever mixing before.

A native to Mobile (with her own grandfather serving as one of the key interviews), Brown moves effortlessly between the different racial and class stratospheres managing to put patrician socialites, costume makers, students and drunken revelers equally at ease. Invoking the legacy of Frederick Wiseman's "fly on the wall" story-telling methods (used in recent years to excuse eyeball-scratching flights of boredom) Brown avoids underlining potential "gotcha" moments, letting the complexities of people's desire for tradition, despite being from bygone eras, speak for themselves.

DVD extras include commentary by the director and cinematographer, deleted scenes and footage from the Mobile premiere.

See also: Manderlay, Billy the Kid, 4 Little Girls, Street Fight, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till.