If you are not familiar with Southern history, during the civil war General Sherman was a man who took it upon himself to burn the entire state of Georgia. So he's not well liked around here. A filmmaker, Ross, decides to make a documentary based on him, but his girlfriend leaves him right before. This begins a journey of cringeworthy desperation.
As someone who has lived in the South my entire life, these 80's Southern folks are legit. Most of the filming was done in Georgia. He seems to be surrounded by a specific group of people. This particular group is large and very vocal (read: loud) but they by no means represent all of the South. They are loud, backwards, racist, religious, conservative, and hope for the apocalypse (or Rapture or whatever words they want to call it). I went to my in-laws church several times and that is all they preach about. We went to my husband's grandmother's funeral and right by the gravesite, the preacher spoke about the glorious end of the world for an hour. The entire funeral no one mentioned his grandmother or her accomplishments. I mean, she died because she was a drug addict so don't feel too bad, but they could have bullshit something nice about her. It's not just a hope for a rapture, it's the desperate need, the longing for, a rapture that is a huge part of these people's lives. This film was made in 1985 and nothing has changed at all in the South. Nothing.
The majority of the film is creepy and pathetic. He goes from woman to woman, desperately trying to get them to be his girlfriend. He films one woman doing squats for a while, chases after old high school flames, and even finds a woman on a remote island. He asks one woman, "Why don't you love me?" That is so pathetic.
This film is honest. It is real. And it is everything that is wrong with the South. Everyone in this film should be ashamed of themselves. I will give this a 7/10.
I cringed quite a bit at this, too.
ReplyDeleteUgh, it makes me embarrassed to be Southern. :(
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