One of the best films of 1992, this acclaimed documentary focuses on the alleged murder in June 1990 of 64-year-old Bill Ward by his brother Delbert, 59, a simple dairy farmer whose defense became a rallying cause for the citizens of Munnsville, a tiny farming community in central New York. Known by all of Munnsville as harmless hermits, the Ward brothers (also including Lyman and Roscoe) live an 18th-century lifestyle in their tiny, grimy shack, sleeping in the same bed through cold winters and tending daily to their hayfields and livestock. Semiliterate and stunted by minimal exposure to the outside world, the Wards are disheveled children in the bodies of aging men; and when Delbert is charged with suffocating his ailing brother Bill, he's a prime target for legal manipulation and a media circus that's immediately drawn to his case. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky spent nearly a year with the Wards and the Munnsville citizens who rallied to Delbert's defense, and their efforts prove that reality is often more compelling than even the richest fictional drama. As a slice-of-life study of eccentricity, country-folk stereotypes, small-town wisdom, and the power of the media, Brother's Keeper is funny, fascinating, and full of compassionate humanity. It's also a riveting courtroom mystery with characters that no casting director could improve upon, tracking the course of justice while leaving the viewer to mull over the truth behind Delbert Ward's alleged crime. --Jeff Shannon
2.
This acclaimed documentary explores the odd world of the four elderly Ward brothers--disheveled, illiterate farmers who have lived their entire lives in a dilapidated two room shack. When William Ward dies in the bed that he shared with his brother Delbert, police officers become suspicious. Citing motives ranging from sex crime to euthanasia, they arrest Delbert for murder, penetrating the isolated, antiquated world that left "the boys" forgotten eccentrics for so many years. As the hazy case against Delbert is investigated and brought to trial, the previously distant population of their idyllic New York town, Munnsville, warmly embrace the remaining Ward brothers, rallying in small town solidarity against the seemingly corrupt urban authorities. Though the film's raison d'ętre is the murder case, the Ward brothers' existence forms the riveting and intriguing crux of the film. Using their nearly unparalleled ability to gain the trust and affection of their subjects, Berlinger and Sinofsky open up a stunningly rich and complex world. This is anthropology at its most haunting; an in-depth look into an untouched slice of Americana that succeeds, as only the best documentary can, in capturing lives that are far too strange, beautiful, and elusive to be imagined.
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