Buy Rivers Wash Over Me on DVD

Rivers Wash Over Me

Strand Releasing / Year: 2009

DVD

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Synopsis

A sophisticated gay black teen confronts ignorance, danger and eventually true love in this tense, probing drama set in the rural South.

Review

Fifteen-year-old Sequan Green is a lanky, erudite and very much gay New Yorker. Forced to move in with extended family members in the rural South, this fish out of water finds his new surroundings downright poisonous. The town is corrupt and complacent, riddled with crime, drugs, homophobia, a macho thug culture and a willfully ignorant populace. His older cousin Michael, with whom he shares a room, makes a daily habit of degrading and violently abusing Sequan, while his aunt turns a blind (if not jaundiced) eye. Enter Lori, a white bad girl who hangs with local drug dealers and her kind, protective brother...who happens to have something in common with Sequan. Director John G. Young wowed us with his examination of race, class, pop culture and queer love literally under fire in 1995’s Parallel Sons. Rivers heralds a return to similar territory, weaving in a crime mystery and a lone, frustrated moral authority figure for good measure. This is daring, raw and deep work of narrative storytelling art.

-- Lawrence Ferber

Product Format Information

DVD : $22.49

Availability: In stock and ready to ship
Region Code: 1
UPC: 712267300624

Studio : Strand Releasing

Languages: English (Primary)
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen
Extras: Trailers, Deleted Scenes
Features:
Outtakes
Audio commentary
Original theatrical trailer

Customer Reviews

Heartbreaking

Urbangruv wrote on 03/31/2013:

This is a wonderfully sad film. It is well made and exceptionally well acted. It deals with subject matter we have seen before but not in this way. The brutality, sadness, hope and intimate tragedy engross the viewer and capture you in way I had not experienced before. It is tough to watch in places because your heart will go out to Seguan.
It is wonderful how this writer and director are able to mix the issues of race, class, sexualityand poverty. This film broke my heart and made believe in the power of love.

Harrowing Yet Lyrical

Amos Lassen wrote on 09/14/2010:

“Rivers Wash Over Me”
Harrowing Yet Lyrical
Amos Lassen
“Rivers Wash Over Me” is a beautiful film about the travails of s black teenager, Sequan, who has to adjust to life rural Alabama after his mother’s death. Sequan is something of an intellectual who had the misfortune of being sent to live with relatives in the hostile and alien South.
Derrick Middleton is Sequan who is so self-effacing that he alienates everyone. His cousin, Michael (Cameron Mitchell Mason) is a star athlete and the two share a room. Michael brutally rapes Sequan in an effort to hide his own closeted homosexuality. Sequan is a follower of the writings of James Baldwin and when he talks about him in English class, he disgusts his teacher as well as gains the enmity of fellow classmate Ahmed, a drug dealer, who refuses to go to college thereby denying his own intelligence. All of the school kids feel contempt for Sequan and they beat him up regularly. All he has is his cousin Charles (Darien Sills-Evans) who is the new town sheriff and who tries to maintain integrity with the racial politics of the town.
The film deals with lies, cover-ups and compromises in a small Southern town. What goes in this town is shocking and although we all know we are living in an era of change, it is shocking to see how some people still live. This film will open your eyes about injustice and racism as well as homophobia. It is well done and keeps the viewer engrossed for the entire film.