Lukester Sister Helen Prejean Documentary

Sister Helen Prejean is known as one of the film’s greatest influences. Dead Man Walking, based on his 1993 book, starring Sean Penn as a man facing death row and Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen. But his story goes beyond that. In the decades since, she has continued her campaign to save men from execution, without success, and to comfort them, however guilty they may be and however appalled by their crimes. . It is a life’s work that she continues to do even at the age of 85. “I’ve seen six men die on death row and I’m about to see my seventh,” she says. The rebel nun. Still, “I wake up every morning full of hope.”

That story deserves a great documentary. This well-meaning film is far from that. The rebel nun The best of the pedestrian and the most misguided is worth it. Sister Helen’s narrative is hampered by clichéd filmmaking that includes flat-footed imagistic montages and too many tracking shots down narrow prison corridors toward the execution chamber. Sister Helen herself is a powerful but comforting presence, and fortunately most of the running time is given to her first-person account, straightforward and down-to-earth. His strong character is not lost, but you have to get past director Dominic Sevier (Netflix series) to see it. (masked scammer) Stock selection.

Sister Helen’s narrative goes back to her middle-class Catholic childhood in Louisiana in the 1950s, seen in family photographs, and her decision to become a nun. In the early 1980s, while working in marginalized communities, she was asked to volunteer as a pen pal for prisoners, and eventually met Patrick Saunier, a murderer and rapist. . She recalls thinking, “I’m not in Nunville anymore. Christ’s bride? Let her go,” when she first entered the dingy doors of Angola State Prison. You can see why people relate to it. She was at Sonnier’s execution but closed her eyes after his death. On the drive home she vomited but later decided she would be a witness and never turn a blind eye to an execution again. Her memory and descriptions are vivid and paint a picture of how she became the person she is, wandering around her house to meet killers and feed her pet birds.

But then they are montages. The first, when we are introduced to Sister Helen’s work, includes religious music and desecration of statues, bolts of electric current (as if we wouldn’t get it — electric current!), wilted flowers and an old-fashioned the clock of . Later, she talks about how the Catholic Church’s reforms in the 1960s changed her social service movement. The ability to wear ordinary clothing instead of a nun’s habit made it easier to connect with people. This good point is almost overshadowed by a montage from the ’60s: flower babies and a rocket being launched into space to the tune of “The Age of Aquarius.” These images may have been intended to jazz up the narrative or add a visceral connection, but they come off as hokey and laughable.

Sarandon is in an awkward position to meet Sister Helen today. Kim Kardashian was spotted Facetiming with him, as Sister Helen helped spread the word on social media about Richard Glossop, who is currently on death row. The celebrity scenes add little more than a bit of glamor and Sister Helen’s sense of determination.

The documentary is up to the moment which brings us to the case of Glossop. He was convicted on shaky evidence, not of committing the murder, but of ordering it. Even a conservative lawmaker from Oklahoma, where the killing took place, says he believes the case was mishandled. The Supreme Court has temporarily stayed the execution, and Glossip is awaiting a decision on whether he will be granted a new trial. He would be the first criminal that Sister Helen was actually spared from the death penalty.

In one of the most revealing segments, we watch archive video of Sister Helen meeting the parents of Faith Hawkins, who was murdered by Robert Lee Wiley (one of the two men based on Penn’s film character). They are angry about it. And in a new interview for the film, Hawkins’ sister resists the idea that people get hurt when electrocuted. “Unlike their victims, they don’t feel anything,” she says. Portraying this tension doesn’t problematize either side—the film is consistently on Sister Helen’s side—but it does show the complexity of the subject, and that anti-death penalty advocates aren’t dismissing the concerns of victims’ families. are “No matter how much pain and sorrow. [the families] “No human being deserves the death penalty,” says Sister Helen. If only Sevier had made the film, this thoughtful activist deserves it.