Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 30, 1993 TAG: 9301300224
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`BROTHER'S KEEPER' IS TOPS IN DOCUMENTARY GENRE
Truth is often more compelling than fiction. No where is this more evident than in the excellent documentary "Brother's Keeper."Filmmakers Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger traveled to the tiny hamlet of Munnsville, N.Y., to document a murder trial and a community's call to arms to help the defendant. The result is a story that's fascinating on several levels. It details the lives of four eccentric brothers, it raises issues about the legal system, and it provides an uplifting account of a town's efforts to help one of its own.
As the prosecutor says, Delbert Ward was an outcast to the people of Munnsville, but he was their outcast.
Ward is an illiterate dairy farmer who lived with his three illiterate brothers. All appear to be mentally handicapped. Delbert slept in the same bed with his brother Bill for 50 years in a shack that redefines the word squalid. Lyman, Delbert and Roscoe Ward awoke one morning to find Bill dead.
The ruling was initially death by natural causes. But after the befuddled Delbert signed a confession, the charge was changed to murder. At first, the prosecutors alleged that it was a mercy killing because Bill was reportedly in pain, and Delbert, who grew up in a society that put animals out of their misery, didn't want to see him suffer. Then the prosecution insinuated that it was a sex killing.
Most of the townspeople weren't buying any of it. They felt that Delbert was a gentle soul and wouldn't harm the brother he idolized.
The filmmakers uncover subtext after subtext. There's the trial and the cloudy issue of guilt and innocence. There's motivation. There's the issue of fair treatment under the law. Clearly, the law officers who investigated the case took a cavalier attitude in protecting Delbert's rights. There's the issue of tainted evidence. There are the supportive townspeople, most of whom wouldn't associate with the Wards before the crusade.
There's the media circus that descended on Munnsville and turned the brothers into scruffy celebrities. And there are the Wards themselves. Vulnerable to the outside forces of society, they kept to themselves, successfully working a dairy farm but living with a total disregard for hygiene.
The filmmakers became friends of the Wards and are sympathetic to Delbert. But they don't turn this into propaganda. There are questions that will never be answered. Sinofsky and Berlinger, who worked for the pioneering documentarian Maysles brothers while making this picture on their own, don't try to. They also provide a surprising amount of humor considering the gravity of the story.
Look for this one to be an odds-on favorite in the documentary category of the Oscars this year.
Brother's Keeper: ****:
Showing at the Grandin Theatre (345-6177). Unrated; 99 minutes.