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May 02, 2006

True/False West: Extended Coverage

More movies from the first True/False West Film Festival

By Alex

Andrew's posted some of his thoughts on the movies we saw at the True/False West Film Festival over the April 21st weekend and now I'm getting around to posting my reviews which will mainly include movies that Andrew hasn't written about. First up? The shorts The Naturalist and Varmints!

Naturalist/Varmints:

While neither garnered the official title of "opening film" at the True/False West Film Festival, The Naturalist and Varmints were the first films to be shown. They are both directed by Doug Hawes-Davis and constitute early examples of his documentarian work. The Naturalist follows Kent Bonar, a man hailed as a modern Thoreau or John Muir, as he meanders through the Ozarks identifying the plant and animal species. Like his predecessors, Bonar lives a secluded life (save for a pack of canine apostles who continually follow Bonar though most of the film) in a log cabin without electricity or running water: he is forced to interact with nature for everyday survival. Bonar sees the careful observation and documenting of his natural surroundings as his way of becoming closer to God.

The Naturalist seems to hover around its subject, never managing to penetrate to deeper questions exploring what led Bonar to retreat to the Ozarks or his views on modern society. It also appeared that pieces of Naturalist were filmed on different video formats and the inclusion of stock footage of wildlife constantly distracted the viewer from the rhythm of the film. While The Naturalist had potentially fascinating source material, it left the viewer mostly disengaged.

One of the great aspects of independent documentary filmmaking is its ability to cast awareness on and build a rich portrait of the things that fall through the cracks of our attention and never quite get the scrutiny they deserve. Such is the plight of the American prairie dog whose once ubiquitous presence across America's heartland has since been demolished to 1 to 2 percent of their original population. Varmints looks at the importance of the prairie dog to the prairie ecosystem and the concerted effort of the government to eradicate the prairie dog population and then the culture that has been built around the sport of prairie dog hunting.

The prairie dog has been painted by the government and cattle ranchers as not just a pest, but a bandit, a thief who stalks the American plains—destroying cattle's grazing grounds and even killing horses who fall into their dense networks of underground burrows. A policy of prairie dog eradication has since been employed to poison the prairie dog out of existence. The most unbelievable aspect of this story is that the prairie dog is neither a pest nor a bandit, but an essential part of the prairie ecosystem. An interview with an ecologist reveals that bison and cattle—cattle being man made introduction to the prairie—actually prefer the grass where prairie dog thrive and the notion that prairie dog burrows have mangled horses and cattle that run into them is a complete falsehood.

The latter part of the film focuses more on the community of people who hunt the prairie dog who—still under the spell of American government propaganda—refer to themselves as the "Varmint Militia." Their violent and bizarre outlook puzzles the viewer to wonder how these people can enjoy the all-out slaughter of a species whose adorableness elicited numerous "awws" and "oohs" from the audience whenever they popped their heads out of their burrows. Indeed, a culture has been built around the murder of the prairie dog with t-shirts, hats and rifles decorated with dead and exploding prairie dogs (many of the hunters/militia men use ballistic point bullets which explode when they hit the animal, likewise causing the prairie dog to blow up when they're hit). Varmints is a powerful testament to destruction of the American prairie dog and a disturbing look at how an out of control myth can inspire such vitriol against America's most misunderstood critter.

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