Sweethearts Of The Prison Rodeo is precisely the kind of documentary SXSW must stop showing. In the dark, pre-mumblecore days, when the festival's mission was pretty amorphous, SXSW premiered Spellbound. Maybe the most financially successful film ever to launch at SXSW, it came with a dark price: any number of soul-sucking, would-be uplifting documentaries in the "quirky," "humanist" vein. These pre-fab triumphs of the human spirit find hope and humor in the unlikeliest places, hitting the same tedious narrative beats as the Hollywood narratives they're theoretically the alternative to, showing that the expected emotions of everyday human life soldier on pretty much everywhere. This is surprising, I guess. Now: I wouldn't want to suggest Bradley Beesley is a cynical director or operates in bad faith, because I've seen some of his other work and it doesn't suggest anything of the kind. (Nor am I crazy about slagging on the premieres...
- 3/17/2009
- by Vadim Rizov
- Spout
Films set in prisons frequently depict inmates as “others,” as morality tales, and the emotional color palette of their grim lives runs from gray to black. Or the stories aim for easy, unearned inspiration. Fortunately, Bradley Beesley’s humanistic “Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo" dignifies the subjects of his documentary—female prisoners. While the film doesn’t forgive them or skirt their crimes (the majority of the women are serving stiff sentences for drug-related charges), the true subject of the film is not crime—it’s freedom. Once a year, the inmates at Oklahoma State Prison participate in a brutal, gladiator-style rodeo—on prison grounds—while their friends, family, and complete strangers watch them compete for cash prizes....
- 3/15/2009
- by James Ponsoldt
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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