It was, unofficially speaking, a reenactment of the Civil War that divided this country 150 years earlier, and comedian-cum-filmmaker CJ Hunt was there to witness the standoff.
We all know what Trump said of those on both sides of the issue, but Hunt’s alternately amusing and enraging essay film “The Neutral Ground” goes beyond the surface debates to examine why some Southerners are so attached to their Civil War heroes.
Lee had towered over the city on a giant pedestal, signifying … what? “Our history,” insist some of the locals advocating for it to remain in place at a 2015 city council meeting, whereas their Black neighbors read the monument — and many others like it around town — as a symbol of oppression.
Hunt started the project in 2015 when New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu started making rumblings about taking down the city’s Confederate monuments, somewhat clumsily lifting the snarky man-on-the-street bits and irreverent interview style from “The Daily Show” .
Though Hunt is respectful to Landrieu, Cox and American Civil War Museum CEO Christy Coleman, with more questionable subjects — like Louisiana Sons of Confederate Veterans commander Thomas Taylor — he pulls the trick of filming himself attempting to keep a straight face as he asks borderline-silly questions.
While hardly a definitive take on the topic, “The Neutral Ground” plays like a more entertaining version of Clint Smith’s much-publicized new book, “How the Word Is Passed.” The two men visited many of the same sites, including the Whitney Plantation, where Hunt discovers the 1811 Slave Revolt Memorial, a grisly yet impactful monument to an underrepresented uprising.
Named for the grassy medians throughout New Orleans intended for everyone’s use, “The Neutral Ground” neatly balances wry bemusement with a more sobering history of Louisiana and the South than many locals get in school.
The South may have lost the Civil War, but under the wobbly project of Reconstruction, ex-Confederacy leaders and their kin were allowed to make the rules, leading to Jim Crow laws and community-sanctioned lynching.
“The Neutral Ground” — which opens in theaters July 2, before kicking off PBS’ latest season of “POV” — seems to have taken forever to reach the screen, considering how long Hunt’s been working on it.
In one scene, Hunt addresses New Orleans’ Battle of Liberty Place Monument, honoring an insurrection wherein the White League refused to accept the results of the 1972 gubernatorial election, stormed the city and occupied several government buildings.
For a while, it looked as if Landrieu would not succeed in removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments, though “The Neutral Ground” spans enough time to be able to witness that victory come to pass.