Hale County, jour après jour

This film, with its free-form flowing scenes of life in Hale County has been praised to the skies by various critics, and in many ways deserves it. That said, sadly all of them have missed its indebtedness to 'A Shimmer of Possibility', a very influential 12 volume photographic work/ book released by Paul Graham in 2008. It pioneered the flowing visual poetics, into a stuttering non-narrative vision of everyday life, finding beauty and meaning in the most ordinary of situations. There are extended film -like sequences of images at the core of this work, that remind me of 'Hale County', especially one of a young African American couple playing basketball in the twilight.

Mr Ross, clearly knows this work - he is an art-photographer and teacher himself - and Mr Graham's work was highly praised, and even given a solo show at MoMA, NYC. RaMell Ross has absorbed the lessons from this work, and transferred them to his film-making, with great skill. The success is his, and I don't wish to take away from it, but it is important to acknowledge a debt and influence, when it is due.

Undeniably well made, this documentary focuses on the residents of this small town and shows their lives. However, i did eventually lose interest in it as there really isnt much forward momentum in the storytelling.

As the title implies, days in the lives of the residents of Hale County, Alabama are chronicled in this documentary. Most of the residents are poor and black.

Director RaMell Ross has chosen a cinema-vérité or fly-on-the-wall approach which works often though not always. It works very well on scenes involving small children including the story of a family with twin babies. Sadly, many scenes linger too long and this film has less effect than a similar documentary also released in 2018: "Minding the Gap". The other film dug deeper in covering similar situations including the struggles of economic hardship for those already disadvantaged.

The pacing of "Hale County...." could have been improved though its laid-back approach can be credited for creating a peaceful mood.

This is the very definition of a "fly-on-the-wall/slice of life" doc. It's probably not your walls or your pizza, though. It feels like photography come to life. It is a pure artistic statement in that arena, no question. Whether or not these pictures are also telling a compelling story isn't quite as clear. Five minutes of a toddler going back and forth don't make sense until you think about it in the context of what happens to that toddler's infant sibling later on. Intermittently, we are interrupted by black title cards with white text, the most striking of which reads: "What happens when all the cotton is picked?" That this isn't so much of a question, perhaps, is maybe what the story is all about. In the 1990 power ballad by Extreme, "More Than Words," Gary Cherone sings, "More than words is all you have to do to make it real." You don't need to speak to tell a story. You don't have to do anything at all. As Steven Tyler of Aerosmith once sand, "Just Press Play" (on the camera).

It would be fair to describe Alabama based filmmaker/teacher RaMell Ross's Oscar nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening as an dreamlike experience.

Feeling absolutely cut from the same cloth as some of Terrence Malick's most memorable and eye capturing tapestry's, Hale County chooses to ignore any type of typical narrative or documentary structure as Ross follows a collection of real life characters across a long standing period of time, as Ross shines a light on modern day lives of black American's in the famous American state.

No doubt inspired by Malick's visionary filmmaking techniques and golden age filmmakers James Agee and Walker Evans, who shot footage of the area in the 1930's to document the depression and poverty that existed in the community, Ross embedded himself with the local Hale County residents and decides too not ask the hard questions of the people he meets or the issues he shines a light on but instead allows his imagery and camera to do the talking.

If there is a slight narrative driver of the film it's in the documentation of school students Quincy Bryant and Daniel Collins, but these two figures are really just passengers in Ross's journey as their lives change and evolve before our very eyes but with very little thorough or deep analysis this style has a detrimental emotional effect on viewers as we are never allowed to dive into their minds or lives completely as Ross keeps us at arm's length throughout.

It's an unfortunate aspect of the film, as Hale County feels entirely like an art-house experiment, not so much an informative or constructive experience, even if the fly on the wall like aspect of proceedings allows us to catch raw and intimate glimpses into the people and the land that make Hale County the place it is today.

There are beautiful moments scattered across Hale County's run-time such as a an early morning sunrise across a dew covered paddock or a star strewn nightscape shot through the quiet surrounds of a local basketball court but all the fine moments captured forever by Ross can't compensate for the lack of a hook to keep us emotionally present in the film, for as it stands we are but willing passengers up for a unique look at a time and place filled with love, loss and future hope.

Final Say -

Some stunning shots and intimately captured moments help make Hale County This Morning, This Evening an eminently watchable documentary but its dearth of a real story or characters we can get to know make it a pleasing but forgettable experience.

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