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withlovemichele
Reviews
The Force (2017)
A Beautiful Film That Adds Little to the Conversation
"The Force" is a well-made film but rather than accomplishing the goal of humanizing law enforcement officers it accomplished the exact opposite - it dehumanizes them. But it does so for good reason and accomplishes an intermediate goal that is a step towards humanizing: it offers an understanding of the process of training that indoctrinates police officers into a particular mindset.
The value of "The Force" film is not humanizing - I don't believe that this filmmaker is capable of accomplishing such. The value of this film is that it offers an understanding of police work (specifically police patrol with some insight into the highest ranking officers and police academy instructors) - an insight that perhaps most people do not understand and that is valuable - at least conceptually.
The question is: do we need this? How is this film not simply an hour and a half episode of "Law and Order" but based on real life in Oakland post-Ferguson? I'm not sure that it is anything but that. I like "Law and Order" but I question a documentary film that follows the same formula as a television drama.
I can tell who the filmmaker views as human by answering some questions:
Whose names do we get to learn in the film?
Who is constantly wearing a uniform? (I never once saw a cop not working or not in uniform.)
What are the names of the community organizers who spoke on camera? (They were never given. Just random, nameless black women speaking.)
What were the roles of the black men in the community in this film? (Let's see there was the black man yelling at a protest, a black man hitting a black old woman with his Benz, black homeless man in handcuffs, a black man whose sister was hit by a car who was described as "extremely confrontational", and a dead black man on the street. So, black men in Oakland are either: dead, violent, angry or killing or severely harming black women. I feel the humanity).
I see a filmmaker who got access to important people, filmed them and then, towards the end of making his film, he found out that the people he had encountered were performing and, by then, it was too late to give a balanced view of the community. So, the cops are portrayed doing so good and the community is portrayed doing so bad and, in the end, the cops turn out to be rapists. So, what did this documentary teach us? I think the work of this film began the minute that the Chief quit. That is when we actually learn who we are really dealing with. The humanizing documentary film would have found those cops who were fired and convicted for statutory rape and got to know them - no uniforms, no guns. The humanizing documentary would have begun with a plainclothes interview with the retired chief on why he was pushed out. Because whatever he was dealing with that pushed him out and whatever is behind those officers' actions - that is the human experience that needs to be addressed. A documentary film that rests on getting important names might win awards but it won't change the lives of people in Oakland.
For me, the purpose of telling a story in the form of documentary is to tell us something that we really don't know. This film stopped short of providing real insight by not going to a place we all fear to go. It's why the cop sitting at the table discussing the video of a cop killing a man in his front yard said that he was justified in using whatever force was necessary to neutralize the situation; it's why Chief Whent quit when he was exposed; it's why Chief Whent hid the misconduct of those officers; it's why Mayor Schaff qualified her statement saying "I have your back" but not if you mess up. Because we don't know what to do when things don't go as they should - we don't know what to do with people who mess up. We don't know how to even tell the story of humanity because we are terrified of humanity - just like the man said after hearing about the officers: "I'm disgusted." Well, he can be disgusted all he likes but that won't change America. Disgust is arrogance and self-righteousness hiding behind fear. This film came right up to to the humanity of law enforcement and stopped, confused and fumbling for a resolution.