Rest in Power the Trayvon Martin Story Reviews
The half-dozen-office series draws a line betwixt Martin's 2012 decease and pivotal moments in America in the 6 years since.
At that place are few who will sentry "Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story" who will come up to the series completely unfamiliar with the private at its center. From his 2012 shooting death to the emerging generation of activists and engaged citizens that arose from the 2013 verdict in George Zimmerman's resultant murder trial, the name Trayvon Martin carries with it associations in different corners of the state. If Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason's half dozen-function documentary serial shows one thing definitively, it's that Martin's senseless killing has come to symbolize and so much more about how America sees itself today and the elements of American life that remain unchanged subsequently centuries of turmoil.
Ane clear goal of "Rest in Power" is to reframe the story as that of private man beings and not as merely pawns in an ideological or societal struggle. The breadth of interview subjects helps to ensure that Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman are non merely presented as abstruse figures. Martin is shown as a student, an aspiring pilot, someone who recognized which of his own decisions he was unhappy with. Zimmerman is described as someone caught in a crisis of identity who chose to embrace an angry worldview, even when presented with enough of alternatives. Family members, journalists, legal experts, and activists alike offer their own analyses of how Martin's story dovetails with many others' throughout American history.
Like many exemplary pieces of recent stories virtually criminal miscarriages of justice, "Rest in Power" is non a forensic assay. Rather than being concerned with seizing a definitive respond to the events of February 26, 2012, Furst and Nason take a wider view of the prevailing cultural attitudes and prejudices that may have contributed to Martin's expiry, Zimmerman'south eventual acquittal or both. (If anything, in that location's a subtle condemnation of the national news media'due south obsession with forcing Martin's parents to confront a very criminal offense scene in which their son was murdered.) Even while considering Martin, Zimmerman, and the various individuals involved in the trial procedure as living, circuitous human beings, "Balance in Ability" makes Stark observations most how the investigation and trial became a prime number example of narrative manipulation and double standards.
Despite the broad-ranging subject matter, one thing "Residual in Power" returns to is Zimmerman's 911 call, made to a not-emergency phone line right before he pursued Martin. With each new layer of understanding, that call comes to mean different things. That repetition of Zimmerman's own words becomes a lens through which "Balance in Power" wrestles with Florida'south "stand your ground" laws, the creeping resurgence of white supremacist groups in the The states, and the history of the city of Sanford itself and the institutional foundations to assistance exacerbate a stunted pursuit of justice. Equally "Residuum in Ability" looks to show how Martin'south expiry helped to motivate thousands of people to bring together a nationwide fight for civil rights, it puts Zimmerman's actions in a historical framework that extends well beyond a single Florida neighborhood.
Every bit the series moves from Martin's death to the trial that would brainstorm xvi months later, "reasonable doubt" becomes a refrain through interview subjects and contemporaneous news footage akin. "Rest in Power" threads a skepticism of the prosecution's strategy and the defence'southward tactics, becoming an examination of how sure ideas floating in the public consciousness metastasized when introduced in a procedural surround. As the events of the trial brand their way into the national news chat, conservative outlets bear a massive share of the series' condemnation. But there are yet moments (Wolf Blitzer's response to the testimony of Martin's friend, the punditification of Headline News channel's coverage) which, by their inclusion, serve as a subtle indictment of American televised discourse every bit a whole rather than one ideological side.
"Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story"
Trayvon Martin Foundation
"Rest in Power" besides posits the response to Martin's death equally a turning point for the social media age. Whether in the specific origins of the Black Lives Matter movement or in the mode that iPhone videos, dashboard videos and bodycams gained greater visibility, "Residual in Power" takes Martin's story and puts it as the outset of a new digital chapter in a volume long been composed in American history.
Both of Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, are featured prominently in the serial, not only sharing their recollections of a fraught trial process, only how each of them came to represent more than they expected. That ascent in public visibility, combined with the case becoming a lightning rod for a growing sentiment amongst far-right groups, resulted in an emotional cost that "Residual in Power" gives them ample time to put words to.
Context becomes a major element of "Rest in Power." From a historical viewpoint, the same overwhelming news bike that consumes much of the land today makes connecting all of these strands an even more daunting task to condense into half dozen episodes. Each installment begins with an energetic overview of the hour to follow, summarizing its emotional scope in a series of jarring, disparate images.
Some episodes of "Rest in Power" connect these ideas improve than others, particularly when that focus on the individual takes precedence. That specificity eventually gives style to a rapid-burn, atmospheric throughline from Zimmerman to Charlottesville. As both proof of the serial' thesis and some other instance of why the immediacy of this project is so difficult to capture, "Rest in Ability" also seeks to depict in February'south school shooting in Parkland as another representative consequence of the same conditions that led to Zimmerman's acquittal.
Simply fifty-fifty if some of these episodes lack a certain sharpness in execution, there'southward a thematic consistency to the idea put forth past many dissimilar participants in this series: No instance of injustice, exist it Martin'southward expiry or that of Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile and the mounting listing of names, can exist taken in isolation. Equally a cultural nexus, somehow signifying what had come up earlier and what loomed in the nearly future, "Rest in Power" is a representative collage. A turning indicate in some ways, a reminder of what hasn't inverse in others, it'south a time sheathing for a country where this could not only happen, merely happen once more.
Grade: B+
"Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story" airs Mon nights at 10 p.m. on Paramount Network and BET.
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Source: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/rest-in-power-the-trayvon-martin-story-documentary-series-review-1201989343/
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