Helping to heal the wounds of slavery

Ten years in the making, S. Pearl Sharp’s “The Healing Passage/Voices of the Water” is the finest accomplishment yet from the noted poet-filmmaker.

In this beautiful and challenging documentary, Sharp investigates the many ways in which African Americans can overcome the lingering psychic wounds of their ancestors’ long ordeal in slavery.

The Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center presents a screening of the movie Saturday at USC.

Sharp was inspired by artist Riua Akinshegun’s 1993 interactive installation on the slave trade, “The Most Mutinous Leapt Overboard,” and also by Toni Morrison, who at the beginning of the film declares: “There’s so much to remember and to describe for purposes of exorcism and purposes of celebratory rights of passage. Things must be made. Some fixing ceremony, some memorial, something, some altar, somewhere, where those things can be released, thought, felt. But the consequences of slavery only artists can deal with. And it’s our job!”

“The Healing Passage” shows a wide range of artists and scholars engaged in what Morrison suggests: commemorating the untold millions of Africans who endured or lost their lives during the Middle Passage, which refers to the voyage from Africa to the Americas. But most who participate in Sharp’s film -- including Oscar Brown Jr., photojournalist Chester Higgins Jr., TV news producer Gil Noble, eminent Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima (“Sankofa”), sculptor John Outterbridge and Sweet Honey in the Rock’s Ysaye M. Barnwell -- stress the importance of looking beyond slavery to reclaim one’s African heritage.

The strength of Sharp’s documentary is that it presents an array of resources and choices for each individual to make for him or herself.

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Guess ‘The Bat’

Among the many rarities in the UCLA Film Archive’s 12th annual Festival of Preservation is Roland West’s “The Bat Whispers” (1930), which screens Sunday after Roy Del Ruth’s “The Second Floor Mystery” (1930), which was unavailable for preview. A talkie remake by West -- who shot it in 65 and 35 mm versions -- of his “The Bat” (1926), it is even more stylish than the original. A triumph of the visual, it is one of the pioneer “old dark house” mysteries and was adapted from the Mary Roberts Rinehart-Avery Hopwood play, which was based on Rinehart’s novel.

The big deal here is to guess the identity of the Bat as he -- or she -- terrorizes a mansion in the country that has been rented for the summer by a formidable New York aristocrat. The film is a clear inspiration for “Batman” creator Bob Kane, even though the Bat was a villain. Chester Morris and Una Merkel star.

The Clara Bow showcase “The Plastic Age” (1925) replaces Bow’s “My Lady of the Whims” (also 1925) because its restoration was not completed in time. “The Plastic Age” is fascinating as a social documentary of the Flapper Era. It stars clean-cut Donald Keith as a champion prep school athlete who arrives at college in a state of near-innocence and is quickly vamped by fast-living Clara -- saucy-eyed, Dutch-bobbed and utterly irresistible. Immediately, he is on the road to ruin both on the track and in the classroom.

What makes the film, which reverberates with desperate Roaring ‘20s gaiety, so timeless is its obsession with winning. Rivaling Keith for Bow’s affections is Gilbert Roland in his first major role. Even then he exuded the dashing masculinity he sustained throughout his long career. (Be on the lookout for Clark Gable in a bit part.)

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Screenings

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Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center

* “The Healing Passage/Voices of the Water:” 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Norris Hall, USC

Info: (310) 284-3170

UCLA Film Archive’s 12th Festival of Preservation

* “The Second Floor Mystery,” followed by “The Bat Whispers:” 7 p.m. Sunday

* “Welcome Danger,” followed by “The Plastic Age:” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: James Bridges Theatre, Melnitz Hall, UCLA.

Info: (310) 206-FILM or www.cinema.ucla.edu