Movies

Photography documentary ‘Lens’ is less than dazzling

Thomas Allen Harris’ documentary concerns what he calls “a war of images in the American family album.” By that he means the way black photographers, both professional and amateur, depict themselves, versus demeaning portrayals by white photographers.

Particularly in the film’s first half, when the 19th- and early 20th-century photographs reveal ordinary African-American life in ways that haven’t been seen nearly often enough, the images are rich and powerful. Harris’ filmmaking, though, is frustrating. Photographs glide past the camera in a near-constant rhythm, with little time to study even the most arresting pictures. Harris’ narration (which uses ideas from a well-known book by Deborah Willis, the co-producer) occasionally slides into numbing academic jargon that’s not remotely as vigorous as the photos.

The photographs on view are dazzling; the way they are shown here is somewhat less so.