Day 57 - Strong Island


Day 57              Strong Island [2017 Documentary]
                          
Director                          Yancé Ford
Cinematography             Alan Jacobsen
Music Composition          Hildur Gudnadóttir & Craig Sutherland
Subject                           Yancé Ford explores the murder of her brother Will
Production                      Yanceville Films, Louverture Films
                                   
IMDb                                 6.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes                100%


I yet again got very depressed about the state of the justice system in America whilst watching this film. Director Yancé Ford takes us on an emotional and deeply personal journey into her family life, focusing on the murder of her brother William at the hands of a 19-year-old white man who was not convicted. The white male, Mark Reilly, shot William in the heart with a .22 rifle, anywhere else on the body and he may have survived. Reilly claimed he was acting in self-defence, although it was not a close-range shot, and William had no previous record of violence. Unfortunately, however, the evidence presented to a Grand Jury was sufficient for an all-white jury to deem that Reilly had acted in self-defence. The murder, as I believe it was a cold-blooded killing, took place in the 90s in Long Island, New York. William was therefore just another ‘aggressive young black man’ for the records. The injustice of it is criminal, there still remains institutional and popular racism in the US to this day, just look at who’s president for fuck’s sake. I could write for hours on this subject, but this blog is about films so let’s concentrate on that. The film concentrates more on the feelings of William’s family than on the injustice itself. The Fords are a middle-class African-American family, well-educated and you would hope that the system might treat them kinder for it. William’s mother is an incredible woman, a former high-school principal, she is intelligent and brave, and yet we learn how she essentially had to accept the non-conviction of her son’s murderer because she knew there was no real hope. Without saying it we realise what she means – if William had been white, Mark Reilly was more likely to have been convicted. I actually though Yancé was trying too hard, he uses close-up interview footage of himself, powerful imagery for sure. I personally just thought he was trying to be too poetic and almost a bit self-indulgent. Making the film more about his feelings towards his brother’s death, when I wanted to know more about why the justice system had failed them. Perhaps that is why it works however. There are some great documentaries about the plight of the black man in America. Yancé instead has made an intense personal film about one particular incident, and it does work. You feel their hopelessness, and I then began wondering how many thousands of black people had suffered incidents similar to this one. I preferred 13th and I Am Not Your Negro, but this gives valuable insight into the feelings behind the murder of William Ford and his family who were torn-up in the process.

Subject Matter              3.5 / 4
Shock Factor                    3 / 4
Production                    2.5 / 4
Music                              2 / 4

HMD rating                3 / 4