Not long ago, my co-director, Joel Parrish, told me of an excellent film which combines minimalist scripting with unconventional imagery, grounding both through a cleverly-unfolding theme. It helps that this theme is ‘big’ (prison and its encroachments), yet the artistic choices in Brett Story’s THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES should be studied by documentarians of all stripes. Lacking plot, it is full of self-contained vignettes which work the viewer in subtle ways. Though deeply opinionated, the film has no cheap politicization. There is music (or rather, a soundtrack), with ambient sound front and center, while found objects, such as the prison telephone calls bookending the narrative, help establish its emotional draw. “Man, I sho’ wish y’all can be home for my wedding,” one such message relates. “I’ma go tie this knot one mo’ time, and that’ll be it for me. But that’s alright, when y’all do come home, we’ll be here waiting on y’all.” In this exchange, Brett Story manages to characterize both speaker and prisoner, yet shows neither—thus revealing both. In fact, no prisoners are shown at all except those long out of prison. The only crime ever named is that of an unsecured trashcan lid and the resulting two-week stint in jail. In a deft move, the viewer is allowed to fill the gap of cause and effect, which works because aggregate causes are so well limned. Even the film’s title assumes an omnipresence across vantage and time, one that can be seen—and therefore scrutinized—through all of them. […]