Happy 2010 and welcome to A Law Librarian in the Dark . Now in its second year, this column discusses movies for law librarians and law library feature film collections. Movies about lawyers, law schools, litigation, famous trials, crime and punishment, or movies that contain “legal themes” are all possible topics. If you have a DVD title that you would like me to review, e-mail me at lawyea@hofstra.edu.
In this issue, I will be discussing a Russian adaptation of the classic 12 Angry Men. Simply titled 12, this movie is about a jury charged with deciding the fate of a young Chechen boy accused of murdering his adoptive father. Although 12 closely parallels the plot of 12 Angry Men, it is very much about Russia – both its history and its current state.
The movie begins with a jumble of disconnected images – the bodies of fallen soldiers, a pair of feet scurrying down stairs, a young boy riding a bike. The images pause momentarily for a title card reading “seek the truth not in the mundane details of daily life but in the essence of life itself” and then the images resume. Out of this chaos of color and sound emerges the voice of a judge charging a jury – “the decision must be unanimous,” she says.
Soon we meet the jury charged with deciding whether or not the boy will spend the rest of his life in prison. Twelve middle aged men are brought into an old gymnasium to deliberate. At first, the decision seems simple – the bailiff quips “you’ll be done in twenty minutes” before leaving them. The jurors are eager to finish quickly. One juror hopes to be on time for his business lunch while another explains that he has scheduled a tour for that day. However, when one of the twelve jurors votes “not guilty”, everything changes.
The jurors are baffled by the “not guilty” vote and express their hostility towards it. The dissenter, a soft spoken scientist, explains “But we’re talking about a human being. And we just put up our hands and that’s it?” When the others demand to know what he wants, he explains, “Well, to talk at least”. And so the jurors begin to talk and out of these conversations the histories and personalities of twelve very different people develop.
The dissenting juror begins the conversations by telling a personal story of his own alcoholism and salvation. He explains that he would have died had it not been for one person taking the time to notice him and believes that everyone deserves the same. One by one, the other jurors explain their own thoughts about the accused boy and also tell their own personal stories. One man tells a story of romance between his father and the wife of an SS officer. Another man tells the story of how he came from the Caucasus to begin his medical education. Least likeable is the racist, anti-Semitic cab driver who calls the Chechen boy a “savage”. He tells the story of feeling like an alien in his own city. Through these stories, we get a sense of the complicated history of Russia.
Slowly, the jury begins to gain sympathy for the boy and start asking questions about the trial. Why did his lawyer not defend him vigorously? Was the knife used in the murder really so special?
Woven in with scenes of the jury are flashbacks from the Chechen boy’s childhood. We learn about his village in Chechnya. We learn about the ethnic conflicts that plagued the area, the death of his parents during the Chechen war, and his subsequent adoption by a Russian soldier. As the film progresses, the boy transforms from merely being an accused prisoner to being a person with a full and tragic history.
If you are looking for an extensive conversation about legal procedure, evidence, or even the jury system, you won’t find it in this movie. These topics are certainly present, but serve as a frame for the personal histories of the characters. What you do find in this movie are glimpses into the Russian past and present and the different types of lives that have lived through it.
The 12DVD was released in July 2009 by Sony Pictures.