Herman's House

Name: Herman's House
Genre: Crime, Documentary
Released: April 19, 2013
Duration: 80 min
Rating: 73

2013

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Generally favorable reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

First Run Features | Release Date: April 19, 2013 | Not Rated

Summary: The injustice of solitary confinement and the transformative power of art are explored in Herman’s House, a feature documentary that follows the unlikely friendship between Jackie Sumell, a New York artist, and Herman Wallace, one of America’s most famous inmates, as they collaborate on an acclaimed art project. [First Run Features]

Director: Angad Bhalla

Genre(s): Crime, Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 80 min

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Critic Reviews

Farran Smith Nehme

Apr 18, 2013

Bhalla’s advocacy gets its force above all from the oddly similar personalities of the two main subjects — Wallace and Sumell — zealous reformers possessed of astonishing optimism, even as Bhalla closes by noting that there are 80,000 prisoners in solitary in the US. Read full review

Zachary Wigon

Apr 16, 2013

Herman's House coasts on the strength of its portrait of two systemic outsiders. Read full review

Stephen Holden

Apr 18, 2013

Although this documentary has a powerful political subtext, it is best described as a conceptual art piece about confinement, attached to a dual biography of the artist and the prisoner. Read full review

John Anderson

Apr 16, 2013

A portrait of an invisible man, Herman's House is a raised voice in the constitutional debate over solitary confinement. Read full review

Mark Jenkins

Apr 18, 2013

Herman's House would benefit from more background material on Wallace, notably about the alleged weakness of the murder rap against him. In the end, though, neither Sumell nor the film is concerned with that. Their goal is to make palpable — and palpably horrific — the fact of living 23 hours a day in caged isolation. Read full review

Kalvin Henely

Apr 16, 2013

An involving documentary that doesn't offer a convincing argument against solitary confinement for those who may not fully realize what's objectionable about it. Read full review

Jenna Scherer

Apr 16, 2013

It’s an absorbing, prickly tale, which Bhalla doesn’t tell as coherently as he could have — oddly fitting, considering this is a story about frustrated ambitions and unfulfilled potential. Read full review

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