Review: October Country

My freshman year in college I took a super-8 workshop where over the course of 10 weeks we learned how to light, shoot, edit and project these tiny little strips of film. Our instructor (a woman who would 11 years later become my producing partner) told us that children would be extremely difficult to work with because they've been raised in a digital world and would be frustrated that footage they participated in wouldn't be available to look at for weeks. Even a decade later I can clearly remember in that moment thinking, "those kids have a point". I learned the bare minimum of how filmstock functions at the point in the digital transition when people who cared about art were happy holdouts, working exclusively with film no matter the expense or time-suck (or frustration of children). At that time digital was associated exclusively with activist-oriented documentaries, bent on conveying a point of view for low costs and with even lower expectations.

Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri's documentary October Country demonstrates that new technologies have emerged to allow the best of these ideologies to merge. Shot entirely on digital, October Country shows a year in the life of four generations of Donal's family. The Moshers reside in upstate New York and each of them readily admit are trapped in a terrible cycle of poverty, domestic violence, child molestation and PTSD. Despite the constant misfortune it depicts, it's one of the most beautifully shot films this side of a Wong Kar-Wai story. October also demonstrates the awareness even casual users have developed with being recorded and how infinitely copyable these images have become. In one scene, wise-cracking tween Desiree watches footage of herself trick-or-treating while snacking on that evening's goodies and insists, "You're going to get me a DVD of this, right?"

Grandparents Dottie and Don preside over the damaged brood. Dottie spends so much her time in damage control mode she admits she doesn't even know what 'normal' is anymore. Don quietly agrees with his wife's assessment of him -- that after serving in the military and working as a police officer for 27 years he's become a hardened and difficult person to live with. While working on household projects to add incremental value to their property, he sagely observes his failures to prevent the young women in his life from reaching out to emotionally distant abusers to re-create a malformed sense of security. Don's sister Denise, crippled with rheumatoid arthritis in her 30s, lives nearby but has little relationship with her brother. Dottie and Don's daughter Donna has two daughters, Daneal (who became a mom at age 16) and Desiree (whose father is in prison for molesting Daneal). Teenage Chris, a foster child taken in by the Mosher grandparents, was cast out of his own family at age 5 after being accused of molesting his sister.

Because the Moshers are telling their story to their own son/brother/uncle the film avoids a three act structure or excessive exposition. We understand almost immediately how low the trajectory is for these people's lives and instead of expecting any last minute heroics, we're allowed to settle in with their feelings about their situation. And as these stories develop organically a host of secondary issues flourish without feeling like one is being beaten over the head by a Micheal Moore-style agenda. We see how drastically a small town is affected when cost-cutting measures are taken at the factory that employs much of the town, the resentments that bubbles up within a family who blame each other for their lot in life and how disproportionately poor women are victims of sexual violence.

What will keep October Country in the good graces of the lovers of complicated films who just a few years ago believed the only way to convey emotion was on expensive, time-sucking celluloid is the film's implicit belief that society lacks the will, interest or ability to address their particular crisis. Denise lives in subsidized housing, Daneal collects food stamps, Desiree's father is in prison for child molestation and Chris is in and out of juvenile detention for petty crimes. But none of the Moshers believe these are meaningful interventions or will ever be effective corrective measures. Instead they are seen as stop-gap measures to further bide their time. Most documentaries that depict crisis are able to end with a title card telling the audience to give money to an organization or write their congressman. That's not an option for October Country, nor do we ever see a talking head of a social worker, politician or academic to explain what can be done about the issues of violence, addiction and poverty. The Moshers' story highlights both the worst elements of humanity, the messy long-lasting aftermath and the inability to address the root cause of these issues.

Update: October Country will be screening in Portland at Fox Tower Fri April 2 - Thurs April 8, 2010.
Directors in attendance on Friday and Saturday 7:05pm screenings.

Comments

[ren bog]

nice informative review! thanks for the post. God Bless! ;)