By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats | 4.125 cats
Director: Garrett Bradley
Country: united_states
Year: 2020
Running time: 81
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11416746/reference
Diane says: “TIME is a documentary that covers 20 years in the life of a family waiting for the father to be released from prison. Surprisingly, it’s not commentary on our criminal justice system, but about how the woman outside powers through. She says, ‘At the beginning of every year, every New Year’s Eve, we have always started the year knowing that this was going to be the year that my husband was going to come home.’ How the heck she manages to raise six high-achieving boys is beyond me.
“Sibil Fox Richardson, the wife and mother, presents a strong image that one of her sons says ‘covers a lot of hurt and pain.’ We see her put on many personas: making honey-laced phone calls to judge’s offices, throwing her shoulders back to tape an ad for her car sales job, sighing and shouting as an inspirational speaker, motherly boosting her kindergartner’s morale.
“I decided not to read how this movie was put together (obviously the early video was made by Richardson herself) and just accept it on its own. The jumbled chronology didn’t entirely work for me. Presentation in black and white throughout, mostly close-ups, suits the story. The piano soundtrack was often distracting. 4 cats.“
Bob says: “In this documentary, a woman in New Orleans whose husband is about 20 years into a 60 year sentence for bank robbery raises her six sons, builds a business, and becomes an advocate for reform of the penal system. In a beautifully edited mix of professional footage and home video, at at least one point memorably intercut between two time frames with a single soundtrack, as if the past is reacting to the present, we get an intimate look at a very big issue.”
Chris says: “Makes great use of valuable archival footage in telling a story that spans twenty years (surely one of the best-edited docs I’ve seen in awhile); registers as both a rich character study/trajectory and a damning (but not preachy) indictment of the legal system for Black Americans. 4 cats”
Julie B. says: “I give this one 4.45 cats after going back and watching some of it again since I was so sleepy first time round! The editing is really well done I agree. Also on a critique about the “classical” music in this one being too loud and not needed, again I disagree. Throughout the film various well done piano pieces of different genres were incorporated. At the beginning I think the fact the music covered kids screaming in background or some conversation was intentional. At those times it was more about getting the idea before a clear narrative explanation was then given and I think the music added to the feeling of a stream of memories being conveyed through archival footage.
“The woman who’s journey this film focuses on should become a politician. She is so dynamic! She could do some good in this world working further on the issue seen in this film. Perhaps she is doing some of that based on what I saw in the film.
“I will add though that giving a lawyer 15k up front to have them tell you there is nothing they can do is not a racial problem.”
Michael says: “Sometimes I feel the sign of a good documentary is when after I’ve watched it, I wonder how it came to be. What was the story strand that the filmmaker stumbled across to make her film? And what was left on the cutting room floor to create the story she wanted to tell? TIME, which follows Fox Rich fight her struggle to get her husband’s sixty-year prison sentence commuted, could have told multiple different stories, all in service to director Bradley’s larger message: racial injustice in the prison system. While the story she told was interesting uplifting, film-worthy, in this case my mind often strayed to the other stories she could have told, which was a little distracting.