‘Time’ Shines a Light on Incarceration Through a Web of Complex Dichotomies

“Time” opens on a grainy, black and white clip filmed on a camcorder. Sibil Fox Richardson is holding the device, trying to find out where she wants to set it up. She is in the kitchen at first, the ceiling fan whirring overhead and the sound of a small child’s cooing floating in from somewhere outside the frame. Once she has changed rooms and propped up the camcorder, she stares unwaveringly into the camera lens. “My husband is in jail,” she says. "I’ve been out now a week and a day.”

Though this is a grim moment to open on, Fox tells the camera that she knows everything will eventually be okay. And thus, within the first 30 seconds of “Time,” the idea of dichotomy is established — black and white, freedom and imprisonment, hope and hopelessness. Director Garret Bradley uses dichotomy throughout the documentary to present the complex story of Sibil Fox Richardson and her husband, Richard Richardson, constantly reminding viewers that nothing regarding family and incarceration is as unblurred or unambiguous as it can often be made to seem.

“Time” moves back and forth between Fox’s homemade recordings of the past, professional recordings of speeches and talks given by a slightly older Fox, and recordings of the Richardson family in the present. Bradley juxtaposes shaky, handheld footage of children’s birthdays, car rides, and other intimate familial moments with sharper images of the present day. In one scene, he jumps between showing a young Fox and pregnant Richardson together and in love, and showing an older Fox and grown-up children in Richardson’s place. Though the story makes these temporal jumps quite frequently, it never feels jarring or misplaced. The black and white further adds cohesion, uniting the timeline across decades of footage. The two opposing colors have both racial and moral connotations, and the use of black and white distills the documentary into its central conflicts by erasing distractions, preventing viewers from forgetting the central crux of the film.

“Time” is told mostly through the perspective of Fox, who served a prison sentence far shorter than her husband’s. After the two of them robbed a bank, he was sentenced to 60 years in jail with no opportunity for parole, probation, or suspension. Though her body is now free, she remains mentally ensnared, devoting every waking hour to freeing her husband. Bradley goes to great lengths to show her dedication, as she makes video journals for him, keeps his memory alive for her children, and speaks at countless venues about her family’s story and America’s incarceral system. “Our prison system is nothing more than slavery. And I see myself as an abolitionist,” she says in a particularly powerful scene.

Everything about Fox is powerful — her strength as she lifts weights in the gym, her calm demeanour as she calls the judge’s office again and again for news, her voice when she asks her congregation for forgiveness. She goes through the agony of uncertainty every day, not knowing when her husband will come home. But perhaps the most compelling part of Fox’s emotional strength is her unwavering hope. When she speaks with Richardson on the phone, she asks, “What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you come home to me?” Every year, she says, she's certain this “will be the year” he is released; it is clear that she truly believes it. She remains hopeful even when that hope seems naive at best, and that infectious belief in a better future spreads to her children. However, the audience remains hopeless in a solemn recognition of just how stacked the odds are up until the very last minutes of the film when Richard is released. It is a surreal moment to watch, as an angelic Fox, dressed in all white, screams and embraces her husband, who dons a shirt that says “NEVER GIVE UP” as he walks out of jail. It is not a clichéd or predictable ending; it is something that the audience dared not believe was going to happen, which Bradley masterfully delivers to an emotionally resonant and relieving effect.

Bradley won the directing award in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival for “Time,” becoming the first Black woman to ever win the award. It's easy to see why her work was award-winning — her use of temporal jumps, decades-long narratives, humanization of complex issues, and presentation of dualities all come together to create a masterpiece that keeps her audience deeply invested. “Time” is especially relevant in America’s current social climate, and is a timely, beautiful reflection on the penal system through the lens of Fox's resilient love.

—Staff writer Ajibabi O. Oloko can be reached at ajibabi.oloko@thecrimson.com