“LA 92”: This Is America

Unexpectedly, LA 92, directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s new documentary about the April 1992 Los Angeles riots, does not commence with the images that started that conflagration, the LAPD-administered assault on Rodney King a year prior. Instead, the film begins with footage of the August 1965 riots in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood, submitted in the service of a grim “The More Things Change…” sentiment. However, while the dismaying sense of repeating history hovers over LA 92, the documentary is less interested in building a particular case regarding the riots’ social and political components than in providing a cohesive audiovisual record of the unrest and its antecedent events.

Lindsay and Martin eschew talking heads or narration, building a detailed history of the riots through chronologically-presented contemporary footage and spare intertitles. While iconic moments like King’s beating and the assault on truck driver Reginald Denny during the riots are doubtlessly familiar, one of the striking virtues of Lindsay and Martin’s film is its copious forgotten footage, much of it bewildering and horrifying. This includes: California fan palms set aflame by arsonists; a pro-police reactionary kneeling before the accused officers with a congratulatory cake; Korean-American business owners in an O.K. Corral-style shootout with looters; and dead bodies left to rot in the streets—retroactively recalling the national shame of New Orleans 2005.

While LA 92 doesn’t have pronounced investigative aspirations, as a historical record it’s a stellar work, condensing a complex event into a riveting 114-minutes treatment. It’s Lindsay and Martin’s facility for finding the indelible moments that the viewer hasn’t seen a hundred times that truly makes the film worthwhile. This strength is exemplified by the sight of an older Asian-American merchant standing in the shattered window of her store, her arms and legs splayed to obstruct would-be looters, screaming tearfully, “This is America!” Indeed it is.

LA92 premieres on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, April 30 at 8 p.m. Central.