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Life in the Company of Death


From the opening scenes of Clemency we are drawn to Bernadine Williams. It begins with an execution seemingly dominated by a man hysterical as he is made to face his fate, and everybody in the moment expresses a fraction of that chaos as they retain him, administer last rights and the lethal injection itself. Everybody except Bernadine, stone-faced, professional, and emotionally detached, only breaking that composure with anger when something goes wrong; the execution is botched. But she can recover -she’s been through this eleven times before.
Alfre Woodard has long been one of Hollywood’s greatest and most versatile unsung actresses, magnetic in just about every role she’s had, a frequent elevator of poor material (I should know having first been exposed to her in the A Wrinkle in Time T.V. movie, where she was the one part of it that was unequivocally amazing), and a sensational presence regardless of the kind of role she’s playing. However, perhaps owing to a seeming preference for television work (in which capacity she’s won four Emmys) she hasn’t had a lot of chances to play leading roles in feature films. For that, Clemency might feel like a revelation, when it’s much more akin to a culmination of a decades-spanning career waiting for a role like this.
The second film from writer-director Chinonye Chukwu, Clemency follows this prison warden Bernadine dealing with the repressed psychological trauma festering out of years of working on Death Row as well as the efforts and hostile attitude towards her of a determined lawyer (Richard Schiff) fighting to free a client (Aldis Hodge) very likely imprisoned on false charges. Obviously it invites a lot of comparisons to another 2019 film set in the world of capital punishment, Just Mercy. Clemency however proves a far more nuanced and challenging exploration of that system and what inhabiting it is like -for those on both sides of the bars. Where the wardens and death row authority figures of Just Mercy were played to typically thin racist caricatures, here all characters have a palpable humanity and where applicable, a plausible professionalism. They aren’t evil bigots doing all they can to stonewall death row liberty, but merely cogs in a machine that happens to enable disproportionate sentences through no fault of their own. And while their roles in such a system must be questioned, the film doesn’t so neatly fit into a narrative of an inspiring escape from death row or even an easy expose and attack on the underlying principles of capital punishment. Rather it dares to ask you to sympathize not only with the condemned but their executioner, and there’s an underlying discomfort the film never addresses outright but is subtextually significant, in the fact that both are black.
The ostracization of Bernadine in part out of this dichotomy, is deeply felt, her discomfort and isolation in the assumptions people make of her keenly emphasized, especially now that she’s overseeing an execution that has attracted wide public protests and media attention. This situation at the centre of the narrative is inspired heavily by the execution of Troy Davis in 2011 and the lack of credible evidence against his avatars’ guilt is striking. Yet the likely innocence of Anthony Woods is a secondary factor. The whole film is swathed in dread, but his scenes in particular show the most harrowing aspect of it. Once his date is set, Hodge plays tremendously the desperation and disbelief, resulting in one of the most shocking and chilling scenes of self-harm I’ve ever seen in a movie. Both this moment and his inability to respond when confronted with the realities of his last meal, requests, what family he wants present, etc. are such brutally authentic moments that I’m certain Woodard wasn’t the only actor from this movie deprived of an Oscar nomination.
There are several great scenes for Hodge, including one that rather harshly makes clear the effect his incarceration has had on his relationships, but the key figure remains Bernadine, unrelenting and outwardly unmoved by the dreary nature of her work. But Chukwu’s script refuses to cast her as the villain, allowing her layers of complexity as she is both visibly haunted by Woods’ questionable guilt and the reputation her prison is accruing and yet firm in her moral conviction. The toll of her ritualistic responsibility rises like a pressure cooker gradually through the film, as her high tolerance for the company of death begins to crack. More importantly we see the long term effects of this occupation in the coldness of her relationship with her husband Jonathan (Wendell Pierce) and her instinctively clinical response to the emotionality (often bitterly directed against her) of the loved ones and allies of the people whose lives she’s tasked with ending. But she remains stoic and resolute, Woodard encompassing these through an overwhelming air of authority and public confidence. Further, she makes a good if perhaps not universally convincing argument for her candour in defiance of accusations of indifference by demonstrating the atmosphere of normalcy she creates in the prison. There is indeed a subtle, quiet dignity she gives her prisoners as she claims, and she’s not totally nonplussed by their suffering. We see this during the climax in an unbroken take of her reacting by trying not to react to an execution, and again at the movies’ perfectly cut ending. It is stirringly powerful, which in a word, is Woodards’ performance. Hodge is stupendous, Schiff and Pierce are great as well, but this is one-hundred percent Alfre Woodard’s movie.
The point of view of Clemency is certainly more critical of the death penalty than condoning of it, but Chukwu doesn’t leave you with an easy binary the way Just, Mercy does. Rather she makes sure you consider the human element inherent in all aspects. If anything, the film is just anti-death, as it shows how an environment of such gloom can have a deep and lasting impact not only on the people who carry out such a difficult duty but on their relationships. Chukwu directed a very thoughtful film about a contentious subject (at least in the U.S.), and Woodard drove it with the depth and subtle bravura of a performer at the peak of their powers.

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