Brother’s Keeper by Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky

Brother’s Keeper landed in the mail from Netflix on the recommendation of a friend of mine, and within the first 20 minutes, it was already a top ten on my list. By the end, it had moved firmly into my top five.

Call me behind the times. The film was released in 1992, yet it feels as relevant and powerful today as it did when it was born. It took me a while to put it together, but after about 45 minutes I realized I was watching a documentary that felt like a hybrid of the novels To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath. The film uncovers a small town, backwoods way of life and explores a rare pocket of human nature, all while taking on a court case that flushes out the uniqueness of four brothers who had lived together in one house since birth. I found myself struck again and again by a quiet sense of awe, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.

Set on a farm in upstate New York, the brothers had lived their entire lives together in a run down, ramshackled house, described in the director’s commentary as a kind of personal sanctuary. One morning, they wake to find one of the four not breathing in his bed, with markings on his face that point to death by suffocation. After picking up the story in a local newspaper and following it from near its origin, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky worked quickly to secure the rights to film the events following the brother’s death, documenting what unfolded all the way to the courtroom.

Over the ensuing one hour and forty five minutes, the film reveals the fascinating lives of these four brothers, the farm they grew up on, and the conflicting elements of the legal case. Together, these layers show just how confused the legal system, law enforcement, and state government can become when they collide with a closed, independent small town culture in the rural countryside of a major state.

At first glance, the average viewer may set this film aside without stopping to see why it is so remarkable. Looking closer into this small subculture challenges our ability to understand natural non conformity. It is far easier for a trained, modern mind to dismiss the brothers as strange or out of touch. But if you look deeper, you begin to see something rare and deeply human.

What emerges is a sense of self and simplicity, a way of life that does not seek approval from larger systems of thought. It is this independence that defines these men and their town’s belief in the right to make their own choices, even if that means being damned by a system that believes it knows better. That independence is both beautiful and dangerous in an age shaped by fear and suspicion of small, self contained groups.

This way of life is disappearing rapidly from the public eye, and Brother’s Keeper offers a fleeting glimpse into a world that may soon no longer exist. It is that glimpse that makes this film a top five for me, a moment we may not be able to look into again.

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlDSGMAyUrE

FULL LENGTH ON YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvroFeisc9k&feature=related