Love withstands the toll of incarceration in Garrett Bradley’s feature documentary, Time.
Bradley tackled similar themes about the effects of the carceral system on family in her acclaimed 2017 documentary short, Alone, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Academy Awards. Now, the director returns with Oscar-nominated Time, a poignant and intimate account of one woman’s determination to keep her family together and bring her incarcerated husband home.
In the 1990s, high school sweethearts Sibil Fox and Robert Richardson married, started a family and opened up a hip hop clothing store in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1997, facing a desperate financial situation, they robbed a bank. Sibil, also known as Fox Rich, served three and a half years in prison while Robert, a first time offender, was sentenced to sixty years without the possibility of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. Sibil and Robert are Black, and while they were guilty of their crime, they were victims of institutionalized racism in the justice system. Fox explains it was while serving her sentence that she came to understand “our prison system is nothing more than slavery, and I see myself as an abolitionist.” She became determined to fight for change.
Upon Fox’s release from prison, she works adamantly for the next twenty years to get Robert out of prison and use her voice to advocate for carceral reform, all while raising the couple’s six children (all boys) on her own. Presented in black-and-white, Time weaves between past and present, blending Bradley’s footage with Fox’s numerous home videos that she recorded over the years as a way of speaking to Robert and capturing family moments for him. In the present, Fox runs a thriving car dealership in New Orleans and makes phone call after phone call in search of an update on Robert’s case. Past and present, we see Fox in the role of advocate and motivational speaker, sharing her story with others similarly impacted by incarceration. We see her as a contributing community member. Through it all Fox owns her mistakes, recognizing the botched robbery as a terrible, desperate decision that deeply affected many lives. In one particularly moving sequence Fox speaks to her church family, asking for their forgiveness and recounting an emotional meeting she had with victims of the robbery.
Most of all, however, we see Fox as a strong mother and role model to her six children, defying the way the carceral system tears families apart by steadfastly keeping her family together, raising her children with hope, love and resilience into wonderfully strong and supportive men. Remington becomes a dentist, his family cheering him on at graduation. Freedom sits on student council at college, intent on a career in criminal justice reform. Meanwhile, equally remarkable is Robert’s ability to maintain his kindness, love and humanity through two decades of imprisonment at the infamously violent Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola. He describes love as the universe’s most powerful force and states that as an acronym, love would stand for “life’s only valid expression.”
It is here, in the daily family moments and clear fortitude of love that the film particularly resonates, the impact of incarceration keenly felt as Fox’s home videos document the absence of Robert’s presence and the tragic passing of time. The home video footage contributes hugely to the film’s poignant intimacy, while the way Bradley cuts between moments in time instills the distinct sense of loss incarceration inflicts—loss of a husband, companion and co-parent for Fox, and loss of a father for a significant portion of Robert’s sons’ lives.
Time meanders in an unhurried pace as Bradley pieces the story together through a collection of moments, exploring the effects of incarceration on family through a vignette of the Richardsons’ lives and the passing of time. The twinkling, jazzy piano score that runs through much of the film contributes to this effect. The tracks, which Bradley discovered on Youtube, are composed by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, a 96-year-old Ethiopian nun with her own extraordinary life story.
Time premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where Bradley was awarded the U.S. documentary directing award. The film is available to watch on Amazon Prime.
Score: B