{"id":168225,"date":"2026-02-07T15:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168225\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:20:11","slug":"natchez-review-documentary-on-mississippi-town-reveals-longtime-fissures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168225\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Natchez’ review: Documentary on Mississippi town reveals longtime fissures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the 1930s, the white matriarchs of tiny Natchez, Miss.<\/a> \u2014 one of the 19th century\u2019s wealthiest American towns thanks to the slavery-driven cotton trade \u2014 opened their stately antebellum mansions to save themselves from economic ruin. Tourism dollars flowed in, even if the prettified Southern history being sold ignored the immoral plague that built its riches in the first place.<\/p>\n

By turns cheeky and disturbing, blunt and nuanced, Suzannah Herbert\u2019s excellent documentary \u201cNatchez\u201d offers its own guided tour of a memory-challenged community (population: 14,000) struggling to reconcile its exquisite, carefully scrubbed fa\u00e7ade with the inconvenient truths some would like to see better represented in the narrative.<\/p>\n

That longstanding erasure has made Natchez a less commercially friendly prospect to younger generations of visitors. And meaningful progress turns out to be much harder than simply refashioning an exhibit or a docent\u2019s spiel.<\/p>\n

Can a place like Natchez \u2014 home to both a cherished tourist pageantry called the Pilgrimage and the slave market site called Forks of the Road \u2014 find a harmonious existence between its green-and-serene sightseeing pleasures and its terrible past? Its optimistic mayor seems to think so, if the first scene is any indication, in which he exalts a \u201cnew Natchez\u201d at a spirited ladies\u2019 luncheon held by the tour-umbrella association, the Garden Club, and featuring that group\u2019s first Black member, Deborah Cosey.<\/p>\n

Cosey, we learn, runs Concord Quarters, a burned-down plantation\u2019s last remaining building, which once housed its enslaved. (She also lives there.) Centering the work and lives of these forgotten souls is a mission she sees as telling \u201cthe rest of the story.\u201d In one tense scene with her white colleagues, Cosey winces at their version of historical enlightenment \u2014 the reclamation project is moving at a horse-drawn carriage\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n

The big house is still the main show, antiquated customs and preserved finery still the plot, even as some of these hosting descendants, faced with declining revenues, grasp that there\u2019s an increasing awkwardness to the \u201cGone With the Wind\u201d myth they\u2019re peddling. Meanwhile, charming and knowledgeable Black pastor Tracy \u201cRev\u201d Collins offers a lively van tour (\u201cSee the real Mississippi\u201d), an educational reality check about slavery\u2019s legacy laced with witty asides.<\/p>\n

The divide gets more complicated when the documentary trails openly gay veteran Garden Club member David Garner, whose charity work benefiting the LGBTQ+ community would seem to point to an old world\u2019s shifting tolerance. But when this outlier\u2019s intensely Southern-fried tour patter reveals a chillingly deep-seated racism, it slaps you right back into sobriety about Natchez\u2019s roots \u2014 a neo-Confederate mindset that doesn\u2019t care if a camera is there to record it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatchez\u201d is full of quietly charged moments in dreamily scenic surroundings, one result of Noah Collier\u2019s lush cinematography, deployed like a deliberately performative nostalgia that lets us know there\u2019s always more to see if we look (and listen) closely enough. This stylistic approach allows Herbert to expertly avoid inadvertently selling Natchez itself, instead focusing on how this town\u2019s peculiar relationship to an overwhelming past still lives inside those doing the selling.<\/p>\n

‘Natchez’<\/p>\n

Not rated<\/p>\n

Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes<\/p>\n

Playing: Opens Friday, Feb 6 at Laemmle Glendale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 1930s, the white matriarchs of tiny Natchez, Miss. \u2014 one of the 19th century\u2019s wealthiest American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[80864,80860,80859,28729,80862,1101,80866,80863,48,52,51,47,50,49,80858,54632,80867,15060,80861,1968,80865],"class_list":["post-168225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-antiquated-custom","tag-beautiful-town","tag-deborah-cosey","tag-documentary","tag-first-black-member","tag-first-place","tag-forks","tag-historical-enlightenment","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-natchez","tag-pace","tag-rev","tag-review","tag-suzannah-herbert","tag-work","tag-young-generation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}