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Last Updated: Dec 11th, 2008 - 19:44:00 |
In a world where events, big and small, seem to unfold faster and faster, and where the impact of human tragedies—those far away and close by—seem to be trivialized by routine reporting, maybe it remains the task of film to take an in-depth look at the human condition—especially the black condition. “Ballast,” an award-winning independent film playing around the country, slows down long enough to makes us think about the hard tragedies unfolding in lives that won’t make the evening news.
Director Lance Hammer paints a bleak corner of the Mississippi Delta in tones that are cold and depressing but startling in their sense of reality. It’s easy to think of “Ballast” as “The Wire” transported to another impoverished black neighborhood—one in the Deep South. He tells the story of a man named Lawrence, a boy named James and a woman named Marlee in scenes that seem to merge the flat landscape with the emotional tenor of those living quiet, desperate lives. This is an art film that has won numerous awards, including wins for directing and cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. It is being played in art houses around the country. It does not unfold like Hollywood; it is not a comedy or melodrama.
While the story starts with the discovery of a death and an attempted suicide, the narrative doesn’t immediately reveal the mystery of these events, how they might be connected and what connects the various characters in humble ranch houses and trailers. By leaving out these standard facts, which would be explained up front in the typical manner that we ingest news and movies, Hammer forces us to think about other aspects of the character’s lives. The fact that Marlee is a former addict is less important than the fact that she is a struggling single mother who is scraping by cleaning urinals for a living. The fact that James, her young son, is being roughed up by drug dealers and is becoming a stick-up kid, is less the issue than trying to decipher what has broken in such a young child, who can also bring amusement into his lonely life by using an old shoe for a baseball, petting a dog or chasing in wonder after a flight of geese. The fact that Lawrence packs a gun is less important than the fact that he is suffering from a numbing depression.
As it explores this reality in a series of disturbing scenes, “Ballast” definitely pushes us out of a certain movie-going comfort zone. At the same time, it does not feel exploitative and it does not offer easy answers. It could easily be judged as offering no answers at all. And that is rare for a film about the black experience. Because while we know that it’s not always all good, it doesn’t mean that struggle has to lead to defeat, or that we won’t survive.
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
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