Sentenced To Learn

Winner of a Best Documentary award at the Athens International Film Festival, filmmaker Zadok Dror's cinema verite style look at life inside women's and men's prisons in the Chicago metropolitan area captures some wonderful moments: Coco, a convicted gang member uses the example of drug sales to teach another inmate basic math; a chorus of women inmates sing gospel songs; a group of men play rummy using cards with simple three-letter words on them (which helps them learn to read). Here, where a purported 70% of the prison population is Black and 20% Hispanic, people are doing what they didn't do in the outside world: they're getting an education. The program visits three prisons, where we Barbara Gains, a student who is learning how to read; and the above-mentioned math-tutor, Coco, who reflects on gang life and seems uneasy about his upcoming release. At the last stop, Pontiac, a courtyard shooting interrupts a tutoring session, and a group of Black inmates talk about the need for America to get smart, because the "Japanese whupped us" through education not brawn. What's missing in Sentenced to Learn, however, is either a sense of cohesion or closure. Yes, we do take away some insights, but they don't seem to come from any guiding idea on the part of the filmmaker. And, at the close of the film, a coda brings us up to date on Barbara Gains' situation, but no mention is made of the other inmates highlighted in the film. For those who can afford to have a thought-provoking though flawed work, Sentenced to Learn should be considered. Otherwise, it's not a necessary purchase. (Available from: Another Zygote Filmworks, 7355 North Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60626-2048; (312) 465-5474.)