'The Farm': The Killing Fields

June 23, 1998

The deep irony of an 18,000 acre slave plantation being converted into a publicly-condoned killing ground (a.k.a. Louisiana State Penitentiary), complete with 4 cents an hour indentured labor, is one that belies the ostensible notion of a 'civilized' late 20th century society. Following 6 inmates for a year, this documentary (The Farm) left me with a deep feeling of anger at the notions of 'justice' that Louisiana perpetuates; a mere fixation with Old Testament retribution that doesn't even pretend to address rehabilitation or any of those other good biblical notions like forgiveness. Eye for an eye, cheek for cheek - it's that simple down South. With sentences that show no sense of proportion to the crime, a convicted armed robber and rapist, after entering the prison in their early twenties can expect, like 85% of all inmates, to die there. Seventy-five years for armed robbery?

Thirty years into his sentence, a graying, middle-aged man must continue to pay for the mistake of a drugged-up young man. Parole denied. A system where you're condemned after being seen once by an overworked public defender, and where you can forget about an appeal because you family can't find the money to pay for the transcripts of your trial. Justice, American style, where the dollar is the most important thing, and the Chief Warden knows the exact amount that 'his' prison spends on toilet paper per annum, but precious little about being a human being. Where that same Warden coldly rehearses the next killing, making sure that the victim's head can't jerk back too far up as the poison is injected into his body; where this act of murder is forgiven oh so easily by the Lord. Welcome to the South. Plus ca change, ca change rien.

We watch the pathetic sight of Vincent, proclaiming his innocence 20 years into a 100 year sentence for rape, seemingly convicted on scant evidence, including a positive i.d. by one of the victims who proclaimed "all niggers look alike"; but this was two young white girls being raped by a black man in the South of 1977, and Vincent has little hope with a parole board that simplistically states "of course he did it", and even if you are recommended for a full pardon like 62 year old Bishop who has spent 38 years behind bars, the Governor doesn't sign it. It's such a crap shoot, that having a pardon signed is referred to as "winning the lottery". In Louisiana, how much has changed if you are born both black and poor??

But this is not all about despair. Thrown into jail and forgotten about (after 3 years, 95% of inmates never receive another visitor), the prison becomes your family, community and burying ground. Bones, convicted of murdering his wife, elects to be buried in the prison cemetery rather than next to his parents; his reason is simple but telling - his friends are there. That incarceration provides their only sense of identity, along with that old standby religion, says more about about the nature of our individualistic society than any fiction can.

Maybe you're saying to yourself, "bleeding heart liberal, what about the victims?" In no way does this film attempt to say that no form of societal comeback is expected when the social contract is broken. The issue is the appropriateness of our response as a society. If true dramatic meaning is embedded in subtext, then the potency of this film directly illustrates why Windhorse as propaganda is annoying and this masterful; left to draw their own conclusions from the facts presented, an intelligent audience is going to be that much more moved, and in my case, outraged, than by attempts at simplistic manipulation by the filmmaker. But above all I am left with the deeply ironic image of an ambulance, symbol of healing, being used to dispose of the inert, state-murdered body of John, and the memory recall of those people standing rejoicing at Ted Bundy being 'fried'. Who's sicker; a society that seemingly revels in murdering its citizens, or the perpetrators themselves??

Peter Lewis
A true African-American, Peter has led a peripatetic lifestle, and after graduating from UCF with a film degree, he is pondering life as another wannabe, devoting his time to working on a novel, his thesis film, a suntan and the dubious benefits of Rogaine.