Today in class we talked about the readings and briefly talked about The Thin Blue Line and Titicut Follies. We also viewed most of Prof.Thakur's film about circle sentencing in Canadian Aboriginal groups, titled Circles.

My initial impression of the film was that it was sympathetic to the view that circle sentencing works and is useful for certain crimes. I presume the media portrayal of circle sentencing told from a Western/Christian perspective of crime and punishment would be negative, in that it is the opposite of "an eye for an eye" response of retribution, and a guilty judgement means no recourse or pity. It seems the community is more concerned with reconciling all parties and not simply putting the guilty away, and not choosing to permanently shut out "the bad ones" from society. While this all appears very positive and socially responsible, I question the lack of balance in the groups, and the circumstantial, casual nature of the proceedings when it comes to the overall fairness in these types of judgements. What if Gordon did not happen to be driving by and step in to be a advocate for the troubled youth? And what of the constant position that everyone behaves like a victim, regardless if they were the victimized party in the proceedings or the perpetrator? The message I am getting reminds me of the native Hawaiian's grievances towards the American government: "You took something from us, you made us this way, and left us in this poor state of affairs. We want special treatment or compensation." Of course, the obvious flaw in circle sentencing is that the victim and perpetrator must come from the same community; not one inflicted up on or by an outsider.

Aesthetically, I liked how the backgrounds in the interview shots and establishing shots constantly reminded us of the natural environment the people live in and how culturally tied to the land and waterways they are. The use of natural objects to represent certain forces at work -- fire, water and stone -- seem to echo the place as much as their metaphorical allusions. I also appreciated how the people were not exoticized in their cultural choice of how they dealt with crimes against their community. I noted that the single caucasian character (the judge) said that this form of justice is very old, and that a card was present to explain that its not unique to Canadian Aboriginal societies.

Suffice to say, I have two doc DVDs I have on hand to watch... King Corn and Naqoyqatsi. Yes, two totally different films, but we'll see how they are. I'll write more later.