‘The Alabama Solution’ Review: Powerful New Doc From ‘The Jinx’ Duo Investigates Injustices in Alabama Prisons
Even if the documentary weren’t premiering at a moment when key aspects of the federal government are being dismantled seemingly at random, the title of Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman’s The Alabama Solution would sound ominous.
The title, which comes equipped with “Final Solution” resonances, refers to a promise or threat by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey that if there are problems in the Alabama prison system, they’re an Alabama problem and must have an Alabama solution. Which is a transparent way of saying, “Butt out” to the Department of Justice and an equally transparent way of saying, “Nah, nothing is going to change.”
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The reality, of course, is that The Alabama Solution makes clear that the problems captured in the documentary aren’t simply “Alabama problems.” And although I’m not sure the doc is nearly as effective at insinuating what solutions might be, it’s a film precision-designed to stoke sadness and outrage, and it achieves that goal thoroughly.
The HBO production begins in 2019 as the filmmakers attend a religious revival in the yard at Easterling Correctional Facility in Southeast Alabama. There’s music and BBQ and everybody looks happy and full of hope and community.
Slowly, one prisoner after another begins to ask to speak to the directors in private, trying to emphasize how every aspect of the revival is public-facing propaganda. This isn’t surprising, obviously, but as they hear stories of beatings and stabbings and worse, the directors become curious. The efforts by prisoners to reach out continue even after filming is shut down at the end of the revival, prompting a documentary about the difference between what the Alabama carceral system wants people to see and what prisoners need people to know — and how far they’re willing to go to bring the truth to light.
There are, it turns out, optimistic communities within Easterling and the other Alabama prisons. They’re the secret cabals of inmates who have dedicated themselves to pushing back against the inhumanity of institutions that are at 200 percent inmate capacity with 1/3rd of the necessary staff, where punishment is the only objective and rehabilitation isn’t even a consideration. They’re pushing for change.
Knowing that they wouldn’t be welcome at the prison for a non-propaganda film, the directors begin seeking answers outside while collaborating with the inmates on the inside. The inmates are prepared to film using purloined cell phones, even knowing that the consequences for being caught could range from solitary confinement to unregulated violence meted out by guards, abetted by prisoners who know that their only chance at parole is playing along and covering up.
After the innocuous and even uplifting opening, The Alabama Solution quickly becomes a nightmare of a documentary, as these citizen documentarians provide the directors with glimpses of sweltering, airless buildings, bloodstained cellblock floors and one distressing story after another.
The documentary becomes a two-tiered crusade.
On the inside, we have activists like Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council, who have spent years of their padded sentences in solitary while using the rest of the time to learn about the law and teach fellow inmates, which has made them targets for additional punitive measures. They learned under the guidance of an older generation of inmates, many of whom were veterans of the Civil Rights Movement; their work is a triumph of inherited activism, and underlines how the racial power imbalances in Alabama are part of the state’s ongoing traditions, dating back to slavery. This culminates in an attempted statewide inmate strike.
On the outside, the directors follow a tip from Melvin to investigate the beating and death of a prisoner under decidedly suspicious circumstances. They follow the deceased inmate’s grieving mother and crusading lawyer in search of justice at exactly the moment that the DoJ issues a report criticizing Alabama prisons. The institutions begin to push back.
With Melvin and Robert Earl, the directors have a pair of reflective heroes whose mission to chronicle and disseminate information from the prison adds suspense, as we watch them filming in darkened corners and underneath blankets, always monitoring for signals warning them about approaching guards. They aren’t there for a “wrongfully convicted” storyline. They’re seeking human empathy and nothing more.
Knowing that some viewers — not, realistically, the viewers who will ever actually see this movie — will resist invocations of mercy for criminals, they balance the emotional and passionate personal narratives with incontestable facts. They concentrate on details like the drug rehabilitation wing of the hospital that, despite federal funding, has none of the programs or infrastructure to show where the money is going; or the scary deposition testimony from a wholly unapologetic guard accused of murder; or a brief and soulless interview with one of Alabama’s chief legal officials, whose cold evasion is unsettling. Even if you already have internalized the argument that The Alabama Solution is building, it’s easy to appreciate the care with which the argument is being built.
Filmmakers have been telling comparable stories for years — see Liz Garbus and Jonathan Stack’s The Farm: Angola, USA, or Ava DuVernay’s 13th, among many others — and the futility is baked in. This is not like Jarecki’s The Jinx (Kaufman produced the second season), where it might have been possible to get justice as the destination of the storytelling process. The Alabama Solution is difficult to watch, and impossible to watch without escalating anger. There isn’t easy catharsis or an easy non-Alabama solution, but it’s impossible to deny that something better must be done.
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