performance: down in the delta

What is American independent cinema? Did it ever exist? Nowadays the definition has become more and more vague. An independent film can have a budget of $50,000 or $20 million. An independent film can be made outside of a large studio but still be distributed through a smaller division that is bankrolled by its parent studio. An independent movie can say all of the things and look a certain way that mainstream Hollywood fare just can't quite supply. In the past couple of years it's almost become a genre. The feel good "indie" movie that typically feeds us quirky characters battling with fractured families ("Little Miss Sunshine"), depression ("Garden State"), adolescence ("Juno"), an abusive relationship ("Waitress"), a hot button issue ("Thank You For Smoking"), or whatever else easily packaged conflict that can please the ignorant cinephiles who still believe that popcorn movies are useless and the mall moviegoers looking for something "different" outside their normal realm of film comprehension. As a result, it's become a smaller beast than it's bigger sibling, the Hollywood blockbuster. These are also troubling times for independent cinema when ideas about politics, gender, race, and class are being articulated better and more nuanced in mainstream film. "The Dark Knight", "Wall-E", "Baby Mama", "Sex and the City: The Movie", "Tropic Thunder", and "Quantum of Solace" were all very different viewing experiences (some more pleasurable than others), but the not so subtle agendas in those films didn't stop them from being very successful at the box office. Has independent cinema run out of ideas? One such film maybe prove otherwise. Lance Hammer's "Ballast" is not only one of the best films of the year, regardless of how much money it cost to make, it's a sensational exclamation that independent cinema is far from death.

"Ballast" is perhaps the most truly independent film to be released this year. Writer/director Hammer did have a distribution deal with IFC Films, but felt compelled to release the film his way by slowly releasing it and letting an audience grow through word of mouth. Bold move, but this is a bold film for the debut filmmaker. Hammer is a middle age white man and has made a film about a black family struggling to keep their head above water financially and emotionally. What could this former architect possibly have to say about an experience that on paper should be far from anything he could possibly grapple with? Watching "Ballast" was like being absorbed by the minimalist joy of Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise" or the eruption of a clear, cinematically unrepresented voice in Spike Lee's "She's Got to Have It" or Terrence Malick's sublime portrait of youth in "Badlands." It's rare to have a filmmaker make you feel as though you're watching something new for the first time and with every quiet, contemplative moment in "Ballast", Hammer beautifully and confidently evokes the pain of loss and the failed attempts of togetherness in a way that feels like a wave of fresh, chilly air emanating from the screen.

Simple in its plot and yet profoundly moving in the way it sits in your heart and mind, "Ballast" weaves the tale of how the recent suicide of a convenient store owner grossly effects his twin brother, his ex-wife, and her troubled son. Set in the muddy waters of the Mississippi delta where black birds flit about the pale skies and fields of mossy grass look left behind or as if they'd been bombed out. It's the perfect backdrop for this fascinating story that is at once extremely bleak and yet never so dark you feel like you're watching a funeral procession. Micheal J. Smith Sr. stars as Michael, the twin left alive and in shock of his brother's untimely death. The camera rests easily next to his inexpressive face to capture his stunned, silent grief. The small home they share is permeated with a history so palpable you can almost imagine what their home must smell like or what the walls must feel like that are left with his blood to dry up and crackle with the paint. Smith Sr. doesn't have a word of dialogue for what feels like the first thirty minutes of the film. A kind neighbor wanting to reach out invites him over to dinner where they share a bottle of Yellow Tail and quietly eat their steaks. The ex-wife is played with such vitriolic anger and desperation to make a better life for her and her son by Tarra Riggs. The true standout of all these non-professional players is JimMyron Ross, who doesn't seem to be acting, but more so re-acting and purging the plights of young black men imprisoned by impoverishment and impossibility. As James, the son of the deceased twin, Ross is relentless in his pursuit of acceptance through a band of thugs, a basketball team he never joins, and the uncle he doesn't know that well. Watching him pull out a gun on his uncle, lay next to a new friend he has found in his uncle's dog, or wander the blank landscapes of Mississippi is not only a testament to excellent casting and performance, but also the film's ravishing and ravished Terrence Malick-esque cinematography by Lol Crawley. All of the film's parts culminate to a whole that won't soon leave you.

How does a movie about suicide, depression, embittered feelings, and poverty become a film that is essentially about redemption, healing, and hopefulness? Whatever stroke of genius Hammer has, I hope he holds onto it and keeps telling stories as sincere and resonate as this one.