George Washington

Synopsis tells us GW is a 'delicately told and deceptively simple story of a group of children' but what I saw was a coming-of-age slice of minimalist Americana too deliberate to resonate with true emotional gravitas and too restrained and artificial to examine the children as anything else than vessels for whatever fancy monologues DGG put in their mouths, every pause and glance of the movie calculated to emulate a specific type of film, I won't say art-house because I don't consider Terrence Malick whom DGG seems to be channeling an art-house filmmaker and I won't even say southern Gothic because DGG lacks the affinity for the Gothic that made TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD such a good movie (the parts of it that don't have Gregory Peck giving courtroom speeches that is) or Flannery O'Connor's children characters so alive and vivid. Filling the gaps with quirks (argh!!) and lacking the truthfulness and honesty the material deserves, for all it has going for it (a sense of pace and framing, which to me, like I said above, seems a bit too coldly calculated which is not surprising given DGG's age when he made it), Green's debut can be in turns good, amusing, annoying, and embarrassingly bad. But then I remind myself it's the debut of a 25 year old director. While directors who worked in the studio system 50 years ago (in the US, Italy, and Japan) got their chance behind the camera only after painstaking tutelage as assistants and technicians in various posts and got to make plenty of bad-average programme films before they hit their stride, young directors these days are called to succeed on their first film, get a good festival run and maybe a DVD deal if they're lucky, wash dishes to repay credit card debts for the next 10 years if they're not. I don't know what to think about DGG though. UNDERTOW showed significant progress as long as it remained geared towards a taut Night Of the Hunteresque southern-fried thriller and before it regressed back to Green's feeble GW shenanigans for the final act. PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has none of whatever mark these two films taken together would suggest. Although a less ambitious debut, I think his friend Jeff Nichols eclipsed him with (the DGG produced) SHOTGUN STORIES.

Don't look for a simple, linear plot line or resolutions to what you think are the problems. "George Washington" is the offspring of "Gummo" and "Stand by Me", and a very distant relative to "Eraserhead" (but with a soul). The dialog is often beyond the age, character, and scope of the kids depicted (similar to "Brick"), which can be disconcerting, yet, when suspending disbelief, remained interesting. The scoring is dark and moody – and seldom lets up. On occasion, the lack of actor training can be seen in the kids, but for the most part they do a good job. The locations are full of dying and dead culture – rich, textural, beautiful crumbling Industrial Revolution. This is a ponderous, sometimes overly artful film that is none the less worth seeing and considering afterwards. It has things to say – and you're expected to use your own mind.

David Gordon Green's first miniscule-budget movie is strange and disconcerting, and appears to lack a real focus; but maybe that's its theme - the aimlessness and randomness of life in a poor North Carolina neighbourhood. But not from the conventional point of view that regards such lack of purpose as totally negative; but with a poetic, visionary eye that can see meaning and even beauty in things and people that appear on the surface to be mundane, derelict, pointless or absurd.

Ostensibly the film is about a group of kids, mainly black, who spend their time goofing around, as kids do, until there's a tragic accident, and then a heroic rescue, and George (Donald Holden) is at the centre of both the accident and rescue. And George is already marked out as an exceptional character, not only because he has a weak skull and has to wear a helmet, but because pretty Nasia (Candace Evanofski) has switched her affections to him from an apparently more attractive companion. The children are surrounded by, and inter-mingle with, a mixed bunch of adults, the most prominent being a group of manual workers, who alternately josh each other and make would-be serious statements. However sceptical he or she might have been initially, by the end of the film the viewer accepts that George is exceptional and possibly a potential hero; but whether the world in general will ever recognise this is more doubtful; though the movie ends on a hopeful note.

Technically, the film is fine; with great photography, striking visuals, and effective music. Nevertheless, it is hard to follow, because of its rough edges and loose ends; it is probably best regarded not as a narrative, but more as a series of vignettes. From a conventional viewpoint, much of the acting by Green's amateur cast, is "bad", reminiscent of early dramatised documentaries by, say, Robert Flaherty; but this crudity and stiltedness add to the surreal feel of the movie, and give the characters a grittiness that smooth "good" acting might not. Of all the movies I've seen lately, this is one I'd like to see again, when an opportunity arises.

"I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields"… Nasia

George Washington is a meandering, moody, and hypnotic look at a group of black children, ages 9 to 14, during one summer in North Carolina. This was my second viewing and it remained a deeply satisfying experience. Though at times self-conscious, George Washington brings to mind Terence Malick's Days of Heaven with its voice-over narration, languid, dreamy tone, and gorgeous cinematography.

The youngsters are shown talking and playing aimlessly among the squalid junkyards and abandoned buildings of their neighborhood. They do not talk much about their hopes for the future but focus on their families and their girl friends and boy friends. The dialogue is partly improvised and, like Days of Heaven, allows the characters to speak in a manner that is slightly more poetic and contemplative than the average teenager.

The narrator, Nasia (Candace Evanofski), is a 12-year-old who has just broken up with her 13-year-old boyfriend Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) because, in her view, he's too young and immature. She's more attracted to Buddy's friend George (Donald Holden), a quiet and serious boy who always wears a helmet to protect his soft skull. They hang out with their friends, a mismatched pair of amateur car thieves named Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) and Sonya (Rachael Handy), and also with Rico (Paul Schneider), a local railroad worker. Buddy shares his sadness with Rico who comforts him with his own story of lost love.

When an unexpected tragedy occurs, each of them must look closer at themselves and struggle to make an emotional connection with the events. They come to their realizations at different moments throughout the film and slowly begin to change in different ways. George, for one, after saving a drowning boy in a swimming pool becomes a neighborhood hero. Those realizations, however, do not provide an instantaneous fix and Green does not provide a forced happy ending.

Green has said, "One of the reasons I made this movie is because movies talk down to kids, put them as a cute little kid with a box of cereal and a witty joke," says Green. "You watch movies like Kindergarten Cop and it's like, 'Oh, a kid said something about sex. Isn't that funny?' It's just annoying and it makes me sad for their parents."

George Washington presents a view of teens that is not condescending but shows each character as a person of dignity and worth. It uniquely captures the confusion of adolescence, the need to belong, to believe life is or can be important, and the universal longing for love. Green has looked into the squalor and found beauty. Like a poem of Walt Whitman, he has expressed the divine in the commonplace.

Even though GEORGE WASHINGTON lacks the star power of the Reel 13 Indies of late (IMAGINARY HEROES, SUNSHINE STATE), it's still a high profile independent film. It's legendary in the industry as the first film from indie auteur David Gordon Green. It also already has its own Criterion Collection Edition on DVD, so Channel 13 can hardly claim to have made a discovery here.

As disappointing as it is that Reel 13 has gone away from bringing us films that are new to us (though not that many of them were very good), you have to acknowledge that at the very least, we get an independent film that is wonderfully cinematic and well-crafted. David Gordon Green has a pretty simple formula – not a great deal of extraneous camera movement, realistic characters and scenes that are lyrically cut together with beautifully photographed landscapes. There is a certain poetry to his work that is all his own – a style that he worked to even greater impact with his follow-up film ALL THE REAL GIRLS.

As similar as the feel of GEORGE WASHINGTON is to that film, it's narrative is quite different and deals with a handful of young kids in a small, poor town somewhere in the South (Arkansas? NC?) as they deal with tragedy and the unstoppable nature of growing up. The kids, whom I suspect are all untrained actors, are all quite good, albeit playing characters that are perhaps more mature than their respective ages suggest. That aspect, along with the verisimilitude and honesty of the scenes, reminds me a lot of Peter Sollett's work. Not as much RAISING VICTOR VARGAS (which airs on Reel 13 in May) than the short it was based on – FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING – only Green accomplishes a similar effect without a hand-held camera.

There a couple of nitpicky things that keeps GEORGE WASHINGTON from being as effective as the previously mentioned ALL THE REAL GIRLS. For starters, it's a little slow and hard to hear at times. Paul Schneider, who is outstanding in a much more significant role in REAL GIRLS, is more of a distraction here than an asset. His character, ostensibly intended for comic relief, is like a sixth toe on one foot – it doesn't stop you from walking normally, but it's really unnecessary. I also felt the voice-over was also extraneous – as if Green didn't trust us to comprehend his themes. The biggest issue I had with the film, though, is the surreal turn it takes in its last twenty minutes or so. Without giving too much away, it relates to changes in the main kid character, which are personified by a radical shift in wardrobe. While I see the overarching purpose of the choice – to explicate how the character deals with some of his misfortunes – it is a major shift in tone for the piece and stands out like a sore thumb against the quiet beauty of the rest of the film.

Still and all, beggars can't be choosers and having sat through some very questionable indie films over the last few months, GEORGE WASHINGTON is a very welcome change.

(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)