Flag (1989)

Linda Gibson revisits the emotional disturbance produced by her early fascination with patriotic symbols and rituals She assembles a patchwork of scenes around discrepancies between democratic rhetoric and the reality of racial exclusion mingling a childs diary entries stills and home movies printed texts street interviews with people attempting to define the meaning of the American flag and a medley of physical routines in which idiosyncratic dance movements collide with stylized variations on saluting Flag flickers with the uncertainties of memory the evocation of a childs credulous view of equality tempered by an adult knowledge of social hierarchy and oppression Paul Arthur