The Strawberry Statement

 

In director Stuart Hagmann's 1970 student protest flick The Strawberry Statement, Bruce Davison plays a crew rower at a Bay Area university who gets swept up in a campus strike, meets a pretty young feminist (Kim Darby) and joins a group of anti-war / anti-racism activists who have taken over the university, demanding it give back land taken from a neighboring Black community. The land has been dedicated to the expansion of the school's ROTC program.

The story is based on James Kunen's experiences during a demonstration at Columbia University in 1968, and the film is an interesting artifact from a time of social disruption and unease that doesn't peddle pat answers or pablum.

Davison's Simon is a footloose gadabout who wanders into the activism sphere solely looking for a hookup. Soon the protest rhetoric, animosity of the university establishment, hostility of the police and the indifference of the greater community are too much for the 20-year-old to ignore. He turns a fight with a conservative oarsman into a red badge of courage and gets elevated as a martyr to the cause of pushing back against the "bullshit."

For her part, Darby's Linda is as confused by the protesters' agenda as she is about her own need for liberation and Simon's intentions. She is drawn to his energy, if not his dedication, and becomes his companion, which, of coures, does not comport with the Women's Lib agenda.

Though the film is an interesting "statement" in its own right, Hagmann's tone (and camera) swings madly between whimsical and didactical. The familiar California folk rock musical score is of the moment but the closing scenes of the gassing and beating of students by the police are shocking and seemingly endless and feel disassociated from what had come before.

I suspect that was purposeful, suggesting demands to "give peace a chance" are often answered by truncheons and boots.

Sound familiar?