I challenge anyone who is even slightly on the fence about the death penalty to watch this and not feel even a twinge of pain for the people involved.
Werner Herzog takes a rather unflinching look at a singular crime and the effect it had on the people involved, from the perpetrators to family and friends of the victims, all the way down to law enforcement, with a singular question in mind - Does the state have the right to decide who dies?
Herzog makes his stance on this question very clear from the beginning, within the first 10 minutes of the documentary, he says "I feel like destiny has dealt you a very bad deck of cards, and it does not exonorate you, and when I talk to you, it does not necessarily mean I have to like you, but I respect you and you are a human being, and I think human beings should not be executed" and I feel this quote perfectly wraps up my feelings towards the death penalty.
Doubters will have you believe that including the boys' backstory and one of their fathers (who is also incarcerated) is a tool being used to illicit sympathy where it is not deserved, but I believe that the systemic failures that these boys faced their entire lives, which led them to this situation, do deserve attention and sympathy from us. Not addressing the failures of the parental figures in their lives or the financial situations and society's attitudes to those in those financial situations allows the 1% to continue to oppress the rest of us, and allows criminalisation of innocent people. You can feel sadness for the boys, whilst simultaneously condemning their actions and believing they deserve punishment for their crimes; those two things can coexist within you, and nobody should let any of us believe that they can't. The question here isn't if they're innocent or not; that was answered before the documentary started. The question is whether or not the state gets to kill people in the name of justice.
Resources prevent crimes, and these boys had none.
Herzog has once again proven he is one of the greatest filmmakers to come to screen, and I always leave his films feeling a weight lifted that someone dared to say the quiet parts out loud, and this was no different.
I challenge anyone who is even slightly on the fence about the death penalty to watch this and not feel even a twinge of pain for the people involved.
Werner Herzog takes a rather unflinching look at a singular crime and the effect it had on the people involved, from the perpetrators to family and friends of the victims, all the way down to law enforcement, with a singular question in mind - Does the state have the right to decide who dies?
Herzog makes his stance on this question very clear from the beginning, within the first 10 minutes of the documentary, he says "I feel like destiny has dealt you a very bad deck of cards, and it does not exonorate you, and when I talk to you, it does not necessarily mean I have to like you, but I respect you and you are a human being, and I think human beings should not be executed" and I feel this quote perfectly wraps up my feelings towards the death penalty.
Doubters will have you believe that including the boys' backstory and one of their fathers (who is also incarcerated) is a tool being used to illicit sympathy where it is not deserved, but I believe that the systemic failures that these boys faced their entire lives, which led them to this situation, do deserve attention and sympathy from us. Not addressing the failures of the parental figures in their lives or the financial situations and society's attitudes to those in those financial situations allows the 1% to continue to oppress the rest of us, and allows criminalisation of innocent people. You can feel sadness for the boys, whilst simultaneously condemning their actions and believing they deserve punishment for their crimes; those two things can coexist within you, and nobody should let any of us believe that they can't. The question here isn't if they're innocent or not; that was answered before the documentary started. The question is whether or not the state gets to kill people in the name of justice.
Resources prevent crimes, and these boys had none.
Herzog has once again proven he is one of the greatest filmmakers to come to screen, and I always leave his films feeling a weight lifted that someone dared to say the quiet parts out loud, and this was no different.
