Might as well make cash: this documentary is boring. Certainly it transpires passion and the desire to transmit emotions, but unfortunately many things are wrong … Presented in American competition at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival and directed by RaMell Ross, Hale County This Morning, This Evening presents the mosaic of an African-American community in the South of the United States. Focus.
An under-exploited patchwork:
One thing should be clarified because this is important: Hale County This Morning, This Evening had everything to be exciting. There is desire, there is passion and there is a subject full of potential. Filming the lives of African-American communities is a promising starting point and could have been edifying. Unfortunately, the report is content to show daily scenes that do not teach us much in the end. And that's the whole problem with this report: it doesn't teach us anything. There is no common thread except filming everyday life. But this ultimately says little socially or even humanly, which is a shame.
Some testimonies, however, are interesting. When director RaMell Ross takes an interest in how people in this community feel, the report immediately becomes more immersive. Discovering people, their emotions and their philosophy of life is a real pleasure and we would like to know more. Unfortunately, these testimonies are far too rare and fail to override the rest of the patchwork. This is the drama of this film: it shows one thing but it does not let us know it. The images only reveal a daily life without really telling us more about these people. Certainly it is the basic premise of this film to show us their daily lives through a telescoping of images. But the fact is that the work falls short of its true potential.
An off-topic staging:
Another problem is superimposed on the under-exploitation of the subject: the extended scenes. A lot of scenes of the film drag on, taking us completely out of the work several times. We will take as an example the scene of the baby running in his living room, particularly long and quite representative of many moments of the film that would have deserved a break earlier.
A positive point is to be noted, namely some effects of rather interesting styles and beautiful images. If these effects of styles are not really the most relevant, they are pretty and bring a certain cachet to the image, giving the report its own identity. It is only a pity that these effects were not thought in terms of "meaning" for the work, because better staged, the report could have had a much more impactful social dimension.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a particularly frustrating report, as it is full of untapped potential. It is a work that could have been exciting but quickly turns out to be boring. All the more sad because RaMell Ross' desire to share with us the life of this community is quite commendable. Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a work that may touch some people, but which, from a purely cinematic point of view, is simply under-exploited.
