The Dhamma Brothers
Inmates Find Inner Peace thru Meditation in Death Row Documentary
The Dhamma Brothers
Unrated
Running time: 76 minutes
Studio: Balcony Releasing (opens 4/11/08)
Film Review by Kam
Williams
Excellent (4 stars)
A maximum security prison isn't the sort of place you'd expect to
find a bunch of men mutely contemplating their navels and the meaning of
life. But that’s what we find Alabama’s Donaldson State Penitentiary,
where Warden Stephen Bullard opted to allow Jonathan Crowley to
introduce an East Indian brand of meditation known as Vipassana to
volunteers plucked from among the institution’s most hardened criminals.
The participants adopting the ascetic regimen understood that the
initiation meant that for ten days straight they would not be allowed to
talk, watch TV, use a phone, have sex or imbibe intoxicants. Those able
to meet the challenge discovered that they emerged from the program
calmer and with a new sense of purpose when they rejoined the general
population.
The
Dhamma Brothers, directed by Andrew Kukura, Jenny Phillips and Anne
Marie Stein examines the before and after mindsets of the cons converted
to the Eastern spiritual path. This fascinating film focuses on a
quartet of contrite individuals, starting with Edward Curry Johnson, a
once-promising student-athlete who was being scouted by pro baseball
when, against his better judgment, he foolishly took part in a
gang-related homicide.
Then, there’s Death Row inmate Grady Bankhead, who confesses here to
being a co-conspirator in a plot which left its victim with a severed
head and a torso mutilated by about 80 stab wounds. I'll spare you the
details of the felonies committed by Benjamin ’OB’ Oryang or Rick Smith,
but trust me, they’re no choir boys either.
Yet, they all made amazing transformations via Vipassana, despite the
fact that none have much hope of ever being paroled. Based on their
mild-mannered demeanors, it seems that they really have come around to
accepting responsibility for their horrendous deeds while making peace
with still having to pay their debt to society.
Unfortunately, midway through the movie, we learn that Alabama’s
Commissioner of Corrections ordered the program disbanded when he
learned that it was turning so many in the jail from Christianity to a
mysterious religious practice he considered occult. After all, ’Bama is
in the heart of the Bible Belt, and as one unsympathetic local yokel
says, ’I don't believe in Buddhism or any type of witchcraft.’
Perhaps the picture’s most astute observation is made by a concerned
counselor who points to the Dhamma Brothers as ’proof that people don't
need to be incarcerated for their entire lives to be appropriately
punished for their crimes.’ A timely argument to give cons a second
chance, given the fact that the country simply can no longer afford to
keep so many hopeless souls locked behind bars.
Buy the Book
Letters from the Dhamma Brothers: Meditation Behind Bars
Click to order via Amazonby Jenny Phillips
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 1928706312
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: September 01, 2008
Publisher: Pariyatti Publishing