… a film recommendation by anna missed

The recent documentary film Where Are We? is now on DVD. Co-directed by Oscar recipients Jeffery Friedman and Rob Epstein, the film, on the surface is a sort of “road” movie, where the pair set out on an eighteen day tour of the South and the Southwest interviewing the common people they meet without any apparent judgment.

Under the surface, as the film unfolds, there is a curious blurring of boundaries on what is normal, what is bizarre, and what collectively might be thought of as a culture gone stark raving mad, incapable of meaningful reflection, or direction. The common character of all the people interviewed, as even their own words belie their own condition, is one of being adrift in a sea of banality, anchored only by religion or patriotism.

If Fahrenheit 9-11 documented the method and consequences of unrestrained American power, this film, in its own little way documents the amorphous cultural sediments that enable that power.

This is a beautiful, ethereal, and terrifying look at America that recalls the “normal” torment evidenced in the photographs of Diane Arbus.