'Selma' - Film or a Documentary?

'Selma' is a great effort and a must watch, atleast once, to know a little more about the plight of the African-American community in the US, then called as 'Negroes'. However, I feel it could have easily become one of the greatest narratives in raising social consciousness. Seems the film missed that opportunity. Not to belittle the team's efforts or to debunk the movie outright, but in the end 'Selma' comes out more as a good documentary than as a movie that depicts the struggle of the African Americans to secure their voting rights. 

Compare this with the brilliant narration and screenplay of 'Lincoln' which focusses on his efforts during last four months to get the 13th Amendment(abolition of slavery) to the US Constitution passed. The viewer was not just treated with brilliant acting and script, even the trepidations, emotions, his mental agony all came out brilliantly in the screenplay. We got a view into who Lincoln was and what went on within him.

In comparison, Selma fails to clearly depict Martin Luther King Jr's struggle, his original intentions, his philosophy and his larger view of the community's plight. We view MLK Jr from the stands! It is surely a good documentary to know more about the period and the events that led to the 'Selma Marches of 1965'. Maybe that was just the intention of the director.