A documentary with Cinema Verite sensibilities and no qualms whatsoever about the honest presentation of its subjects, “17 Blocks” is both heartbreaking and inspiring. Director Davy Rothbart wisely removes himself from the effort to allow the cruel and dangerous sprawl of suburban Washington, D.C. to unfold before his audience’s eyes, providing a window into a world many are familiar with yet don’t “know.” And while it’s a difficult sit sometimes, “17 Blocks” is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the confluence of race and class have codified into a sort of informal caste for an entire subsection of America’s citizenry.
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A title card at the beginning of the film reads, “This film spans 20 years in the lives of the Sanford-Durant Family, beginning in 1999, when they lived in southeast Washington, D.C., 17 blocks behind the U.C. Capitol.” The main focus of the documentary centers on Cheryl Durant, mother of nine-year-old Emmanuel, and teenagers Smurf and Denice. Although they live in a somewhat rough neighborhood, and single-mother Cheryl is battling addiction issues, the family unit and their community keeps the Durants afloat.
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When the audience catches up with the Durant family about ten years later, many of the budding issues seen earlier have developed and taken further shape. Cheryl’s addictions have begun to spiral out of control, as has Smurf’s participation in “the game” (drug dealing). Denice, something of a surrogate mother as a younger woman, has taken on Cheryl’s role as the family matriarch, while Emmanuel has emerged as a smart, straight-edged young man with solid career goals. It’s a mix of good and bad for the Durants, for a while Cheryl and Smurf have sunken deeper into their worst impulses, Denice and Emmanuel have found a way to overcome and even excel.
Yet when tragedy strikes the family at this ten-year mark, everything is thrown into upheaval and anything that might have been going right for the Durant family is sent off the rails. Gun violence rips open a wound for the family that doesn’t ever really heal, and the way everyone moves forward (or fails to) informs the rest of the documentary and the following ten years. The development is nothing short of shattering, both for the Durants and the audience, and Rothbart’s decision to keep himself invisible so that the footage can speak for itself is a masterstroke.
Indeed, Rothbart never guides the narrative with a voiceover, nor does he allow himself or any crew a visual presence in “17 Blocks.” And with the exception of a few musical queues, there’s little driving the audience in terms of an emotional guide, for what’s playing out on screen doesn’t need much in the way of assistance. The sudden death is devastating, sure, but also part of a larger reality the Durants and their community take as business as usual. There’s even a neighborhood t-shirt shop that specializes in making memorial clothing for the fallen, and from the look of things, their business is booming.
This story, then, becomes less about one family and more about a portion of the U.S. that suffers through an impossibly redundant sequence of poverty and violence. Any number of institutionalized factors play into the vicious cycle of African-American poverty in the United States, from the disproportionate incarceration rate, to the limited access to well-funded schooling, and of course the higher rate of police violence against them. And while Cheryl isn’t blameless, something she and Rothbart confront when addressing her long-term drug abuse, it’s clear that she’s playing in a game with a tampered deck.
There’s hope to be found in portions of Emmanuel’s story, and also later on, when Smurf and Cheryl begin to confront their addiction issues, but there’s little in the way of help for the Durants and those like them. What they accomplish must be done by their own initiative and with limited resources and few positive examples to guide them. The success of “17 Blocks” derives from its willingness to peel back the disturbing shell of this existence, but also its determination to show a complete story filled with a sense of hope despite all the odds.
The scope of the film is sometimes limited and betrays its title somewhat by ignoring anything that’s going on outside this neighborhood: situated just blocks from the country’s capitol. Twenty years is a long time, and between 1999-2019 three neighbors of the Durants named Bush, Obama, and Trump presumably had some effect on their lives. It might have been interesting to see how the social dynamic changed (or didn’t) as a result of these sociopolitical changes, but the documentary still works well enough without it. And maybe that is the point, anyway. Seventeen blocks might not seem like that much of a distance, but for the world the Durants inhabit, the space between them and the politicians that determine their fate might as well see them on the moon. [A-]
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