2020 Muriel Awards: Best Documentary

 

“It’s all there in the title - Time. This is what it looks like when life continues on without you, as your toddlers grow into men, your apple-cheeked young bride transformed into a firebrand activist and pillar of the community and there’s a you-sized hole in the middle of it all (here personified by an actual life-size cutout of Robert hung up at the house). Bradley has the remarkable good fortune to have access to years’ worth of home video footage shot by Sybil (who subsequently goes by the name Fox Rich), often framed as video diaries where she can express her hopes and frustrations with the whole film playing almost like a feature-length version of the scene in Interstellar where McConaughey watches his life passing before his eyes. Switching back and forth between lo-res home movies (converted to black and white) and gorgeous black and white HD, the film is constantly blurring the line between past and present with youth giving way to maturity and one milestone after another passing with the patriarch absent, all while Fox narrates events, both quotidian and monumental, for the benefit of a husband she may never hold again.

“But mostly the film is a tribute to Fox, who we watch evolve before our eyes, dedicating her life to reforming the inequities in the justice system, raising something like half a dozen boys (not trying to be glib, the number and ages of his her children feels muddied here, including at least one child seemingly conceived a decade into Robert’s prison sentence) into remarkable young men all while constantly lobbying judges and parole boards to try and reunite her family. The most revealing scene film arrives late in the film, after being politely rebuffed by the secretary of a judge who she’s been chasing over the phone for weeks we watch her genteel mask fall away in an aside to the camera, finally giving into the sadness and anger she’s spent years constructively channeling, motherfucking a civil servant who couldn’t be bothered to do their job. It’s heartbreaking and a little funny in the way she taps into a pool of rage with a sweet southern lilt only to then straighten herself out after a moment and gets back to business. It’s a remarkable portrait of someone left behind who won’t even contemplate moving on.

Note: This essay was originally posted on Letterboxd. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Andrew Dignan is a video licensing professional based out of Los Angeles. If you've ever complained that MTV no longer plays music videos and only airs constant episodes of "Ridiculousness" you have him (partially) to blame. You can read his writing about every film he watches on Letterboxd or his general thoughts on Twitter, now with less political griping.

Best Documentary:
1. Time [106/18]
2. Dick Johnson Is Dead [99/16]
3. David Byrne's American Utopia [92/14]
4. City Hall [81/12]
5. Collective [73/11]

Coming at 7 PM: Our pick for the Best Film of 2010.