Sing Sing

Oh, this made me cry so much. What a masterpiece! Sometimes people ask too much of cinema. Sometimes people expect too much. The best cinema can give us is life itself. To look at real people and real events, with no judgement and all honesty. To be an instrument for the silenced and unheard, for those whose lives don't have a place on our daily lives. There's so much humanity in here. There's so much feeling in here. And that humanity, that feeling is brought unto us by people we are quick to label and judge as delinquents and lost causes. Mistake is in human nature. We are not only ourselves, but the environment and the circumstances that brought us up. In some cases, we do things we regret. We hurt others, but end up hurting ourselves even more. As for the world, it doesn't see us for our hurt, but rather for their preconceived notion of who we are. In other cases, we are, right out of the bat, judged for things we didn't do. Sentenced to a life behind bars, where the birds can only sing every 6 months, for the crime of being the wrong color, the wrong class, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It's too much to bear, to hear your voice tremble towards the end, while your family grows without the scent of your clothes and the look of your eyes. It's too much to bear, to feel your hands crawl towards the end, while your offspring follow in your footsteps of mistake and despair. Theater is an escape. It brings you into another person, another reality, well, an imagination rather. It's what you make of it, instead of what the world makes of you. Into the jail, they brought comedy with themselves. And comedy is the hardest of them all. At the pain of a lost life, how can you laugh? But, well, your only option really is to laugh and be someone else, just for that moment, so you can feel that you are finally free. When you finally break free from those chains and that fluttering heart, you can only cry, at what it was and what it is. You are free, but you lost so much. It's relief and happinness, but it's also hurting and questioning. How do you start a new life with the stigma of taking lives? In the end, the credits roll and there it is: "Himself". Clarence Maclin was playing himself. David Giraudy was playing himself. Patrick Griffin was playing himself. Mosi Eagle was playing himself. James Williams was playing himself. Sean Johnson was playing himself. Jon-Adrian Velazquez was playing himself. This wasn't acting, this was real. And just as those credits rolled, my eyes filled with tears. The realization that this film was a real story played by those same people is what really broke me in the end, and, at the same time, gave me hope there may be a future for those who now come in, just as they came out.