There is much in Blink that is disturbing.

The 58 minute documentary style film tells the story of Gregory Withrow, the white trash drop-out who became a leading light in the American White Aryan Resistance movement.

There is the undistilled hatred that pours out of Withrow as archive 80's film shows him barking to fellow white supremacists: "We will overthrow the government and establish a white homeland by any means.

"(Our goal is) the extermination of all sub-human non-Aryans from the face of the North American continent''.

There is the aura of subdued menace - of a man who could crack at any moment - that emanates from Withrow a decade after he left the neo-Nazi movement following the epiphany of meeting the first woman to love him.

But nothing compares to the shock of hearing Withrow describing in an ordinary, matter-of-fact way, tales of violence which are hard to comprehend.

Withrow, who is extensively interviewed, describes bringing a young black school friend to his trailer home after they exchanged Christmas gifts, only to be confronted by his father who brandished a basin of boiling water, screaming: "Get that f***ing nigger off my yard!'' Withrow is then forced by his father to quite literally knock the black boy out.

Blink's greatest strength is that it looks honestly at what drives the deranged and disturbed men who populate the white racist movement.

The frightening thing is, if Withrow's dysfunctional experience is in any way representative of white working class America, the far right has a huge potential recruiting ground.

According to one psychologist interviewed, as white patriarchy collapsed in the 1970's with the growth of the affirmative action movement, the only thing many working class men felt they had left was "white male privilege''. Faced with this fear of loss, many turned to violence.

Withrow emerges as an immensely lonely child, brutalised by his father, who learns to fear his own type before hating others.

Moving to San Francisco, he is homeless, drifts into drug use and takes to attacking foreigners. But he finds a type of salvation in the Ku Klux Klan, which forces him to dress smartly, makes him feel respected, and sends him to college.

His sorry, self-loathing journey through the Nazi movement ends when he meets Sylvia, an elderly alcoholic whose family fled Hitler's Germany who shows him love for the first time in his life.

Elizabeth Thompson's film ends with Withrow living a kind of rural utopia on a cheap farm with his new Hispanic wife, learning martial arts, and still fighting the demons within.

For all the bleak brutality, there is some hope - but it is precarious - as Withrow turns his back on violence and racism and attempts to redeem himself.

But he is still a potential time bomb. Toward the end, he is seen meditating over a huge Samurai-type sword - a worrying image of a man trying to be good, but balanced on the edge.

Bermudian Spencer Critchley composed the music for Blink.

Blink will be showing at the Little Theatre at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Director of photography Thomas Harding shooting a reenactment of a skinhead attack in Elizabeth Thompson' Blink.

REVIEW REV BIFF MOVIES MPC