52 Films by Women Vol 5. 1. CLEMENCY (Director: Chinonye Chukwu)
Contains spoilers
Who’d be a prison
warden? The inmates don’t like you – they have their own issues to deal with.
The staff resent you – you earn so much more than they do. The media demonises
you – you represent the institution that sends prisoners to their graves.
Families of the inmates are sickened by you – why can’t you help their incarcerated
loved ones? Lawyers are antagonised by you - because you won’t assist their
clients. One person is grateful to you – the local bar owner. You represent
some good business. What – you can’t sleep? Paid-for programmers love you.
Bernadine Williams
(Alfre Woodard), the protagonist of writer-director Chinonye Chukwu’s
prison-based drama, Clemency, is one such warden. Hard as stone, she
gives the media nothing. Outside her window, protestors shout the name of one
of her guests, Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), who has been given the death
sentence for the killing of a police officer. He was at the scene but did not
discharge the murder weapon. He’s been on Death Row for fifteen years, aided by
a compassionate lawyer (Richard Schiff) who is on the verge of retiring. ‘You
gave me hope,’ Anthony insists, having apologised for sending the lawyer away
after hearing about the passing of his mother. Naturally, Anthony wasn’t given
leave to attend the funeral. The lawyer is heartbroken that all his efforts
appear to be in vain, hinging on the clemency of the State Governor.
Bernadine is a
functionary. She has the thankless task of being in the room when inmates are
put to death by lethal injection. It is a cocktail of drugs, the last of which
stops heart function. In the opening sequence, a Latino gentleman is strapped
in for his death dose. Only the medic cannot find a vein. He tries the arm – no
good. The foot – are you kidding? Finally, his stomach. The prisoner is in
agony. The curtains are closed on spectators. The priest barely knows where to
look. The prisoner bleeds through his belly. The intubation is dislodged. The
prisoner is alive, in unspeakable agony. What to do? The emotion that hangs
over the room is embarrassment. How could they mess it up? Why was the prisoner
not fed water? It is a relief when the prisoner dies. However, there are
questions to be answered.
This isn’t
Bernadine’s only thankless task. She fends off the media and a contingent of
lawyers who want to see Anthony. If they aren’t on the visitors’ list, they
aren’t coming in. You might expect that Bernadine would answer to the late
Latino’s mother, explaining what happened. There is no such meeting. We see
Bernadine offer the woman hope. There could be call from the Governor. No such
exercise of heart. Bernadine isn’t the type of warden who lobbies the
Governor’s office or pretends to know their mind. She remains in her office,
fighting fires. She is the one who has to offer prisoners the choice of a final
meal, within reason. She completes a form with a heavy heart, ticking the box
‘no meal/fasting’.
At certain points
during the film, Chukwu’s camera rests of Bernadine’s silent face. In her first
scene, she doesn’t respond when addressed formally. ‘Warden?’ No
acknowledgement. ‘Warden?’ Still, nothing. ‘Bernadine? She tilts her head
towards the speaker. It is as if only the mention of her name reminds her of
her humanity.
Bernadine’s husband
(Wendell Pierce) is there for the nightmares, her lurch forward into heavy
panting as if almost drowning in her sleep. She retreats to the lounge and
watches TV. ‘I’d like to sleep with my wife,’ Mr Williams explains. ‘Is it too
much to ask?’
After work,
Bernadine goes for a drink and when a junior colleague joins her, allows alcohol
to take her senses. She intends to drive home drunk, but the colleague won’t
let her. She begins the evening by raising a work matter. The colleague bats it
away. ‘How’s the children – you have two, don’t you?’ Bernadine asks to
demonstrate her interest in other stuff. ‘You really suck at small talk,’ the
colleague responds.
In a strange manner,
Bernadine is as confined as the prisoners in her care, only her entrapment is
self-enforced. On the evening of her wedding anniversary, plying her with white
wine and a favourite song, her husband tries to persuade her to retire. Bernadine
is appalled. He then tries to leave her, stating an intention to check into a
hotel. She visits him at his place of work (a school), something he doesn’t
reciprocate. (Can you blame him?) Finally, he concludes, ‘this is our home’.
There is an
unexpected development. Anthony receives a letter with a picture of his son,
now almost fifteen. His ex-girlfriend, the one who didn’t stand by him at his
trial, who decided during pregnancy not to burden an unborn child with the
matter of the father’s incarceration, she gives Anthony the big speech that she
isn’t sorry. Anthony is desperate to see his son – to have a family. This hope
is firmly dashed.
Hodge is striking in
two sequences. Firstly, when he exercises alone, pounding a basketball against
the hard ground as he paces around an exercise square – the camera reveals that
wire mesh acts as a ceiling. He doesn’t have anywhere to shoot the basketball. Secondly,
when Anthony is at his most despondent, he looks at the hand-drawn pictures on
the wall of birds of flight and slams his forehead bloodily against the wall.
‘I will decide when I die!’ he cries as he is restrained by two officers.
In the latter half
of the film, you wonder where the conflict is. Does Bernadine think she is
fulfilling a public duty? Can she only function when she keeps her emotional
distance? At one point, as Anthony expects a visit, she pours him a glass of
water. Anthony is grateful. Anticipation quickly moves to disappointment. The
priest, there to console Anthony, is surplus to requirements. The film builds
to an extended close-up on Bernardine’s face, having heard Anthony protest his
innocence one last time and express to the family of the deceased police
officer, his sorrow for their loss. Anthony has been told, not least by his
ex-girlfriend, that, unlike her, he is loved. ‘All we want is to be noticed,’
someone says at some point. Bernadine for the most part wants to be invisible.
The final scene is
about the lowering of Bernadine’s professionalism, her reconnection with her
humanity. It feels beside the point. Surely, she should feel something for a
broken justice system if Anthony is, as he attests, innocent. Bernadine should
not want to be a part of the execution of those whose defence lawyers were
unpersuasive or who had juries that were too prejudiced. It isn’t about her. We
should be thinking about Anthony and how he was judged too quickly. We should
feel that in Death Row cases, the burden of proof should be higher.
I found myself
distracted rather than moved by that final close-up, that fixation on the water
running below Bernadine’s nostrils. I found her unresponsiveness contrived. In
dramas, you take for granted that directors will make the right choice to
elicit a reaction. Here, the ending only seemed to work for part of the
audiences - those who felt compelling to clap during an end-credits song that
also felt misjudged.
Reviewed at
London Film Festival, Odeon Tottenham Court Road, Screen Three, Central
London. 15:00 screening.
Comments
Post a Comment