C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2005)

Pretty Good

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Blistering performances.

I have always been intrigued by the film's 'what-if' premise. After all, I'm a huge fan of author Harry Turtledove, Ward Moore and Phillip Dick's books about alternate history. Having a mockumentary, where the Confederacy had won the American Civil War and established a new world order that incorporates the entire former contiguous United States, the Golden Circle and the Caribbean; seem very fascinating to me. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I found the film directed by Kevin Willmott, to be very good, despite the low budget. I like how the movie primarily details significant political and cultural events of Confederate history from its founding until the early 2000s, using only a few fake historic reenactments, replica talking head interviews, and using real-life historic stock footage as faux-newsreel like a fantasy version of documenter Ken Burn's 1990 documentary 'Civil War'. I also like how it is presented as if it were made by a British documentary crew, being broadcast to the Confederate States, including fictional humorous fake commercials between the segments of the documentary with a few real racist products. I even like the way, the mockumentary opens with a fictional disclaimer that says, it might not be suitable for viewing by children and "servants"; making it seem like we were really in that world. For the most part, this film was fine and dandy, but I thought, the movie could have work better, if truthful, they didn't show the Confederate States, so united. After all, based on my research, each state in the Confederate States of America was only united, because of the war. In peace time, these states would had ate each other, seceding left and right because how much, they value their own state rights over a strong federal government. Even the institution of slavery wouldn't have save the CSA, as majority of the south did not believe in slavery. Only 31% out of 100% of southern families owned slaves at the time. Most of those, who was willing to fight, was only doing it, to protect their homes. Plus, the slowly isolationism between the states, segregation between minorities and its majority white upper class and the creeping of the Industry Revolution, would had crush the style of plantation-type agriculture that slavery live on. This will cause the slave trade to be near-obsolete in this world, as the few industries, that are left in this backward world would had value machine over human livestock. Another thing, worth noting, is the CSA would never had the power to possess the Union, even if they really wanted to; which is true in real-life history, as the South never really wanted to, but let's just say, for fun, that they indeed persuade the military and financial aid of the United Kingdom and France. Even with that, the North would still have most of the industries, and the larger amount of population. So, a CSA version of reconstruction is pretty much not possible, as the South didn't have the troops to do so, if anything, the South would be ravage by slave revolts as majority of the Southern troops would be occupying in the Northern States. In truth, if the South really did gain, their independence, it's most likely that the United States would still their own separate country, because of those versions. Another problem with this film is the fact that CSA's History is too much like the US's history. This film seems like it wasn't creative enough to make alternate world history in the absent of a US presence. Like really, how is Nazi Germany and Soviet Union still around, seeing how the CSA never interfere in WW1. There wouldn't be a Great Depression, Second World War, the Cold War, The Political unrest of the 1960's and the Vietnam War. It's not the cleverest of scenarios. If anything, the 20th century world of this film should be, way different than the real one, seeing how economy, policies and borders are not the same. I was really hoping for this film to be, more imaginative. Another thing, the movie could had made the film seem more realistic, is not have the same actor, Larry Peterson played every member of the Fauntroy family throughout the mockumentary. It made the film look really cheap. Even if, they got, another actor; I found the idea that one family having a big part in every Confederate event, kinda unrealistic. Despite that, the film still work with their satirize tone. The acting was alright. The camera work was fine & while, this movie doesn't the greatest grasp of history. It's still worth seeing. So check it out.

I generally like "alternate history" stories: I enjoy studying history, and alternate history stories are a great way to discuss what happened and why, and it's just plain fun to kick around what-if's.But I found this one generally disappointing. I think to make an alternate history story interesting, you have to have some kind of twist. Something unexpected has to happen. But here ... The South wins the Civil War, and so slavery continues and the whites are all racist. And then slavery continues. And then the whites do other racist things. And then slavery still continues. And then whites do more racist things. And on and on. Yes, I agree that racism is bad. If someone recited case after case of real racism, maybe it would get tedious, though of course I'd hope it would stir us to action. But this is someone reciting case after case of make believe, fictional racism. It's obviously intended to make us mad at these evil racists, but sorry, I'm not going to get worked up about hypothetical crimes that never happened.The premise of the movie is that the South won the Civil War because they got help from Britain and France. They certainly tried to get such help, so it's at least a marginally plausible idea. But then they say that the South conquers the North. This is VERY far-fetched. It would have been a stretch for the South to survive as an independent nation, even with European help.They do almost nothing to explore how history might really have been different if the South had won, other than slavery continuing. There are a few scenes about Confederate leaders being friendly with Hitler and comparing notes on how best to oppress minorities. But then does that mean America does not get involved in WW2 in Europe? So what happens? Do the Allies still win, or not? There's a quick clip of an astronaut planting a Confederate battle flag on the Moon. (Unlikely, actually. Wouldn't they plant the Stars and Bars, not the battle flag?) So is there still a space race with Russia? Is there a Cold War? They never say. I don't recall them saying anything about World War 1. What was supposed to have happened there? They don't even try to discuss anything that isn't specifically about race and slavery. Well, except for the curious, unexplained interludes where they toss in religious discrimination and wife beating.The acting is pretty lame. Especially in the scenes that are supposed to be clips from historical movies. Maybe that's deliberate: when movie-makers put a "movie within the movie", they often seem to deliberately have bad acting in the "inner movie". Maybe they want to make sure that the acting in the inner movie doesn't end up better than the acting in the outer movie and thus looking incongruous. But wow, did they push it far here. I've routinely seen better acting in high school plays.This is a highly political movie so I'll include one political comment. At the end they reveal that many of the parody advertisements scattered through the movie were in fact for real products. They solemnly inform us that even today many advertisements use "slave imagery, like Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima". Except, umm, Uncle Ben is based on a real person, who was never a slave, but a 1940s rice farmer. And Aunt Jemima is just a picture of a fictional woman. I've never seen any ads that portrayed her as a slave. One of their fake ads in the movie is for Gold Dust cleaning powder, which had many ads featuring two black children, called "the Gold Dust twins", performing household chores. There's no indication that they're slaves. Plenty of advertisements, before and since, have had pictures of white people preparing food or performing household chores, from Betty Crocker to Chef Boyardee to Little Debbie. Apparently the position of the film makers is that it's racist to include pictures of black people in advertisements. I'd think that if they never used pictures of black people but only showed whites using their product, that would be racist.

From start to finish, it's a satire on American history and TV documentaries. The real history is deliberately twisted to show viewers what America might have been like today if the South had won the Civil War. Fake historians recite fake commentaries; fake visuals show action that never occurred or is taken out of context; actors act out characters that never lived. Even the commercial breaks are fictional and presume that slave life is part of America in the twenty-first century.I thought the commercials were funny and clever. Examples include a TV sitcom called "Leave It To Beulah", about a Black maid in a White household. Another commercial advertises "The Shackle", an electronic product put on slaves so that their owners know where they are, at all times. The funniest, though, is "The Slave Shopping Network", where two bubble-headed White ladies advertise Black people for sale; the commercial is funny because it is so outrageous.The history lesson, however, I found boring. Structured like a documentary, its visual images and its various commentaries go on and on in excruciating detail. I'm just not that much of a history buff to spend all that time trying to digest a history that never happened. Further, the viewer really has to know the real history in order to know which characters, scenes, and legacies are bogus, since this false history is a twisted version of real history. In particular, I found the "John Ambrose Fauntroy" character annoying.The film's visuals and sound compare favorably to real documentaries. Background music is appropriate. Casting is generally acceptable, but the narrative suffers from some overacting. The cast is very large, consistent with a long drawn-out historical drama, showing lots of different people from different historical periods.Even though the South lost on the battleground, its values seem to be still embraced by many Americans; that, I think, is the theme of this film. I just wish the satire could have been presented more succinctly and with less confusion. "C.S.A.: The Confederate States Of America" is built on a clever premise. It will be most appreciated by viewers with a thorough knowledge of the real American history.

People, seriously... These are reviews of a Fictional movie. REVIEWS! As in, did you like it or not based on Staging, Costumes, writing, Acting, etc. No one cares if you're from a former confederate state, and you happened to get all butt-hurt about it being made. CSA was pretty good. Low budget, but entertaining. Half-a$$ed the costumes, but who cares! It's a mockumentary. And a silly one at that. If you like dry, humorous, FAKE, history movies then this is right up your alley.One thing I will say that I had a personal problem with was the amount of commercials that ran during this movie. If I didn't already have insurance on my slave, he wouldn't be working in the field with all that heavy machinery. When will congress pass mandatory slave insurance into law?See. Seems ridiculous when you treat it seriously, or as something to get upset about...