I watched Penumbra recently on cultureunplugged.com without reading anything about it first. I would suggest that you do the same if you have not watched it yet. All I can say without giving away too much is that it is a film about a friend visiting another, learning about him on the way from people who have known him in the past, and in the end meeting him briefly.
Director Gwynne McElveen travels to the US after having exchanged letters with her pen pal Jim, to meet him for the first time. We learn that Jim is a fiercely talented artist and quite an intelligent man, whose fabulous artwork (mostly cartoons and architectural drawings) is frequently shown to the viewers, and excerpts of his letters are read out aloud by various people on screen. After meeting Jim's parents, brother, and a friend it becomes clear that Jim, is in fact, in prison on death row. Having secured permission from the authorities, Gwynne gets to meet Jim but cannot film their encounter due to prison rules and later describes him as a nice person who speaks cautiously but with tremendous positivity. In the end we learn that Jim is still awaiting execution and has unsuccessfully pleaded to be executed soon.
The film stays away from posing heavy questions about whether Jim deserves to be killed by the state or the ethical issues surrounding capital punishment in general, and instead focuses on the transformation that Jim's relationships with his loved ones and his world have undergone since conviction. I found that to be the best quality of this film - the non- melodramatic yet sensitive depiction of a man whose spirit and creativity remain undiminished by the intensely restrictive conditions that the legal system have, possibly fairly, imposed on him. It is impossible not to be moved when we see his brother say he has never visited Jim since he was imprisoned, or when we see people in a bar discuss lightheartedly about prison life with humorous references to prison rape, and question whether it is fair to use taxpayer money to sustain such convicts. One is left wondering at the myriad ways in which society assesses and structures the boundaries and relations of an individual, and how the individual reacts to them. For better or worse, as a man points out in a scene, the prisoner is still a person, and Penumbra is a captivating glimpse into the personhood, past and present, of the prisoner.
Director Gwynne McElveen travels to the US after having exchanged letters with her pen pal Jim, to meet him for the first time. We learn that Jim is a fiercely talented artist and quite an intelligent man, whose fabulous artwork (mostly cartoons and architectural drawings) is frequently shown to the viewers, and excerpts of his letters are read out aloud by various people on screen. After meeting Jim's parents, brother, and a friend it becomes clear that Jim, is in fact, in prison on death row. Having secured permission from the authorities, Gwynne gets to meet Jim but cannot film their encounter due to prison rules and later describes him as a nice person who speaks cautiously but with tremendous positivity. In the end we learn that Jim is still awaiting execution and has unsuccessfully pleaded to be executed soon.
The film stays away from posing heavy questions about whether Jim deserves to be killed by the state or the ethical issues surrounding capital punishment in general, and instead focuses on the transformation that Jim's relationships with his loved ones and his world have undergone since conviction. I found that to be the best quality of this film - the non- melodramatic yet sensitive depiction of a man whose spirit and creativity remain undiminished by the intensely restrictive conditions that the legal system have, possibly fairly, imposed on him. It is impossible not to be moved when we see his brother say he has never visited Jim since he was imprisoned, or when we see people in a bar discuss lightheartedly about prison life with humorous references to prison rape, and question whether it is fair to use taxpayer money to sustain such convicts. One is left wondering at the myriad ways in which society assesses and structures the boundaries and relations of an individual, and how the individual reacts to them. For better or worse, as a man points out in a scene, the prisoner is still a person, and Penumbra is a captivating glimpse into the personhood, past and present, of the prisoner.