Auburn has already lived through the drama of Sabina Kulakowski's murder and Roy Brown's wrongful imprisonment for the crime. His vindication and release 15 years later ripened the tale to be told to the rest of the world.
Local filmmakers Alex Dunbar and Andrew Wolf relate the sequence of events that forever changed the lives of Kulakowski, Brown and others in “Blanchard Road,” a documentary by Wind Up Films. Interviews with Brown, WSTM-TV reporter Jim Kenyon, former Auburn District Attorney Jim Vargason and several other key players in the tale push along its retelling in the skillful hands of Dunbar and Wolf.
From the gruesome murder and the shock it registered in Cayuga County to the joyous first days Brown spent reunited with his family, every part of the timeline is given equal gravity. Even Auburn residents fairly familiar with Brown's tale will find some new information in the accounts of the portentous bite marks left on Kulakowski's back and the story of the man now suspected of leaving them - Barry Bench, whom DNA evidence eventually fingered for the murder.
In a documentary covering so lengthy and detailed a series of events as that of the Kulakowski murder and Brown's court proceedings, pacing the storytelling presents a challenge. The filmmakers meet it with well sequenced interviews and narration that permit the viewer to absorb each turn just before the next arrives. Vivifying the tale is an extensive collection of archive footage shown during many of the interviews.
Dunbar and Wolf go to great lengths to avoid any basis for accusations of bias toward either side of the contentious issue of Brown's wrongful imprisonment. They do not gloss over the threat Brown lobbed at a Cayuga County social worker in 1991, the prison time he served for it or the conspicuous timing of his release just days prior to Kulakowski's murder in her Aurelius home.
Though the filmmakers could not speak with former District Attorney Paul Carbonaro or former Cayuga County Judge Peter Corning, Vargason is given ample time to explain his perspective on several key points of Brown's case. What results is the most compelling kind of drama: One in which there is neither good nor evil, but real people with real motives made understandable by their conflicting frames of reference.
If you go.
What: “Blanchard Road”
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Where: Palace Theater, Syracuse
Cost: $7
Info: There will be a Q&A session with Roy Brown and the filmmakers following the film. Brown's band PONY (Prisoner of New York) will play a musical set after the Q&A.
Read all about the latest happenings in the world of film at David Wilcox's movie blog, “The Citizen's Cinema,” at www.auburnpub.com.
From the gruesome murder and the shock it registered in Cayuga County to the joyous first days Brown spent reunited with his family, every part of the timeline is given equal gravity. Even Auburn residents fairly familiar with Brown's tale will find some new information in the accounts of the portentous bite marks left on Kulakowski's back and the story of the man now suspected of leaving them - Barry Bench, whom DNA evidence eventually fingered for the murder.
In a documentary covering so lengthy and detailed a series of events as that of the Kulakowski murder and Brown's court proceedings, pacing the storytelling presents a challenge. The filmmakers meet it with well sequenced interviews and narration that permit the viewer to absorb each turn just before the next arrives. Vivifying the tale is an extensive collection of archive footage shown during many of the interviews.
Dunbar and Wolf go to great lengths to avoid any basis for accusations of bias toward either side of the contentious issue of Brown's wrongful imprisonment. They do not gloss over the threat Brown lobbed at a Cayuga County social worker in 1991, the prison time he served for it or the conspicuous timing of his release just days prior to Kulakowski's murder in her Aurelius home.
Though the filmmakers could not speak with former District Attorney Paul Carbonaro or former Cayuga County Judge Peter Corning, Vargason is given ample time to explain his perspective on several key points of Brown's case. What results is the most compelling kind of drama: One in which there is neither good nor evil, but real people with real motives made understandable by their conflicting frames of reference.
If you go.
What: “Blanchard Road”
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27
Where: Palace Theater, Syracuse
Cost: $7
Info: There will be a Q&A session with Roy Brown and the filmmakers following the film. Brown's band PONY (Prisoner of New York) will play a musical set after the Q&A.
Read all about the latest happenings in the world of film at David Wilcox's movie blog, “The Citizen's Cinema,” at www.auburnpub.com.
