Rating: 
Summary: The white Negro and the concept of freedom
Review: To be Negro does not always mean to be black, nor a black skin need remain black any more, nowadays... Elia Kazan's irreverent and pervasive humour marks skin colour as a matter of the person's spiritual choice, between the world and one's own self-the spirit of temptation is again a character test ... A natural white Negro is pressed (tempted) to forget (lose) oneself , stay on the better part of the world, reserved for "whites", and avoid the pains of conflict -- the same way professionals (not only actors) assume roles, wear new faces, cut new teeth and confront the lights with broad, lying smiles, thus becoming "images"... The tragedy is that in one's quest to avoid pain, sometimes will suffer deep, and weep more, inside a persona encrusted on person and soul... Human rights of a white Negro. But in this film we follow a naturally white Negro girl who returns home (a town in the South), now a graduate nurse. She is angry, --- and her education allows her enough freedom to express her anger articulately --- for the social predicament in which she has to re-lapse, as a poor Negro woman, despite her brilliant education.
But, because of her rampant anger and her acquired quick reflexes to the challenges she faces, she fails to see other, fundamental aspects of life, that transcend the race-difference concept through which she experiences life, so painfully. This counts as a failure to communicate with her grandmother and friends. ("Nobody hates you, Pinky!")
This is one main theme of the story: Concepts, as the title of the film itself, ("Pinky") which is the name of the heroine, true to the reality of her skin colour, which can fit either of two races.
So, a white woman (as Pinky is taken for on appearance) is pressingly offered two white males' unsolicited patronage to exit the territory she is not supposed to walk about alone, in the Negro neighbourhood, for fear of molestation by the blacks. But when Pinky says she is in her very neighbourhood, there immediately arises the threat and violence of molestation by the white "protectors"-- the end concept being that woman is the Negro of the world, in any case... These two women figures, the white mistress and her black faithful servant have evolved closely together, despite their colour, their class and even their educational differences. They seem different , but their spirit is revealed to be kindred. They both care for Pinky, and they succeed to help in her spiritual development in their way. As the grand mother says,"When you grow so old there is no such thing as a place you have to keep», you move to a unity that has no colour or class concept to keep people apart. So the old teacher, to whom Pinky near forcibly becomes a nurse, bequeaths her estate to her-to compensate her for her service-or/and to give her a reason to fight, an outlet for her anger-or/and to make a place for her in her own world , which she was so tempted to abandon, along with a part of her own self...
Pinky addresses the best in the lawyer who will defend her case in court. And though the trial is seen as preoccupied with the white peoples' view, the judge finally finds for the defendant, and admonishes the town folks who would not tolerate a Negro with substantial property among them. Justice is done "but the community issues have not been served". Now that her anger has been atoned, Pinky will answer the question what she really wants to do. She will not marry nor follow away the Yankee doctor she thought she loved, because she will not abandon the "black" part of her soul. She stays, turns the house she inherited to a nurse school, thus finding her purpose of life.
These are the three main characters of the film, Pinky, the angry white Negro woman, her grandmother, the illiterate voluminous negro Mother who, by serving others and by the pains of her love, has earned wisdom; and the frail, brittle yet imperative white teacher, who little by little has earned the wisdom of the essential, to know the truth. There are many lesser but memorable characters in the narrative: The loving fiancé, who is ready to make big sacrifices for his love, Patricia, even when he discovers that she is Pinky, a Negro. He is a big-city man, ready to move away from "home", to another state, to avoid gossip about the "dark background" of his woman; there they can both "lose themselves" among an indifferent crowd, who need not know them... Educated member of the community, the lawyer, a southern gentleman with a deep sence of honour, loyalty and duty, who makes sure Pinky receives a fair trial, and finally full justice, although he doubts if other matters of the community have been served by this confrontation. There is also the vulgar and greedy, ripe yet dumb "belle", who would have inherited, who makes a spectacular point of putting Pinky in her place, of a coloured woman, in case she had forgotten or anyone else had not noticed... There is the pathetic Negro clever dick, who "lives by his brains", serving the powerful and oppressing the needy. Most comical is the scene of the arrest, by two policemen, who haste to protect a lady (Pinky) from the blacks that mistreat her. But when they are told that Pinky is black herself, their attitude becomes equally violent to all, regardless of sex... As vivacity and functionality of a society is not just a matter of a corpus of legislation on oh Human Rights, but these qualities are measured by their fruits, the alleviation of pain and the incorporation of more individuality, we can reconsider the Yankee externality in comparison with the southern holistic interest in the person, when this is achieved of course, as in this story. Kazan in this film must have had a hilarious ball, by miss- arranging all social preoccupations and certainties, north and south, to add at the end that people need love as they also need the law. An elaborate, well articulated with real issues and dilemmas film by the genius director Elia Kazan, whose every film is a host of critical social matters, demanding philosophical examination.
Rating: 
Summary: another "Imitation of Life?"-NOT!!!
Review: When I first read the description of this movie at the back of the video cover, I said"Oh Brother!! Another 'Imitation Of Life'!!!!!" While I watched the film, I realized that this is not like IOL!! Pinky actually overcomes the racism in the South when she wins that court case against that snobby lady!! My only criticism of this movie is that it is sooo stereotypical! The Ethel Waters character in the movie was illiterate and she was a servant.
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