Time

A lot to absorb in this fascinating documentary about a black man sentenced to sixty years for armed robbery and the fight by his wife to get him released after a more reasonable period of incarceration, although twenty years is still pretty hefty all things considered. It's a story centred on the injustice system but at its heart is Fox Rich whose dedication, love and drive to get her husband freed shows a commitment few others could aspire to under these challenging circumstances. Innovatively filmed and presented, the saddest part is that we become increasingly immune to such injustice as it's so often encountered, especially within African American men.

This documentary is missing something. To me it seems empty. Had it not been for all of the recorded footage by Fox then there would have been no substance at all. I can agree that her husband was given too much time for the crime but....The documentary itself isn't deserving of the high rating others have given it.

"It's almost like slavery time, like the white man keep you there until he figures it's time for you to get out." Robert Richardson's mother.

It's not what you would expect, this personal documentary narrated by Sibil Fox Richardson about the 21 years she waited for her husband, Robert, to be released from prison for a robbery he committed with her in 1997 in Shreveport, La. It is a quiet essay with almost professional grade home video for Sibil as she narrates the patient struggle to get her husband's sentence reduced from 65 years.

Although such a draconian sentence begs for the sobriquet of "Black racism," the doc, deftly directed by Garrett Bradley, makes few allusions to that societal challenge. It is rather, as its title succinctly suggests, a treatise on the passage of time with its attendant sorrows and its equally powerful hope: "God looks over the sparrows, Sibil. He's going to look over us," says Robert.

Sibil took a plea bargain of twelve years in order to attend to what would be six children, as handsome and articulate as their mom and dad. No weeping and gnashing, just melancholy longing to take time back to when the family had so much promise. Smartly, Bradley shows videos in the final shots of the family in reverse as if time could be altered but never would be.

He also makes the right decision to leave the doc in black and white in order to blend the past with the present. Unlike other documentaries about carceral injustice, Time does not demand we accept Robert as victim-it accepts his mistake and subtly suggests only that the sentence was excessive.

By showing the talented Sibil doggedly working for reform (she could have been a preacher) and her exemplary family soldiering on without dad is the best argument for careful, unbiased sentencing in a system that fails to account for incarceration's effect on everyone, the convict's family and us. Law and order sometimes forget the human factor.

"But at my back I always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near." Andrew Marvel

I almost lost hope in this documentary, but that hope was rectified with the final 15 beautiful minutes. However even though the documentary finished strong, as a whole it really failed to grip me!

The overall backbone of the film, was for me the journey that the family experienced whilst growing up without a father. This journey for me was incomplete. As a viewer I wanted to know how the mother created her own narrative and was reborn from the ashes, completely rising up from the total desperation of before she was incarcerated. How the children were effected by this when they were small children to when they were adults. Not just raw footage of a baby and then current video of a graduation. The director showed us the beginning and the end, unfortunately I found no middle ground.

It's remarkable how much director Garrett Bradley and her editors achieved with so little. Working on a micro budget and a mix of her footage and old video tapes, Bradley chose to unify it all in elegant black and white, while focusing on what truly matters: the story. And what a story it is-a deeply human tale of circumstances, choices, and consequences that stretch far beyond what most of us can imagine.

Anchored by a powerful woman at its center, Fox Rich, the film catches you and never lets go. If you care about people, you will care about this family. Time is a scathing indictment of our racist economic and penitentiary systems. We can-and must-do better.