In this Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, director Ava DuVernay explores the history of race and mass incarceration in the United States. It's named after the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution which abolished slavery, but DuVernay film argues slavery has endured in the American judicial system.
I had hopes for 13th as I loved Selma, DuVernay's 2014 narrative film about the 1965 march for African-American voting rights, and because of its acclaim; however, I'm afraid it fell way short of living up to that for me, and for two big reasons. Firstly, maybe it's because of the Netflix presentation but visually, her approach here just feels much too glossy and vibrant for a coverage of this subject matter. Secondly, I found it increasingly unsure of whether it wanted to be a study of contemporary prison life for incarcerated African-Americans, with all the unfair and racist treatment that makes them face, or a full history of American race relations in and out of the US judicial system. Both of those themes deserve and need a full film to themselves, but this film tries to intertwine them and suffers as a result. I ultimately found it sincere but quite convoluted and misjudged.
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