deliver us from weasels

Not so randomly, we ended up watching two documentaries on the South this weekend. The first we saw, Small Town Gay Bar, has been making the rounds on the GLBT film festival circuit. It was available as part of the "watch now" feature on the Netflix (only available on IE). So we watched it now. And I was thoroughly depressed. I spent many years in rural southern towns like the ones in the movie and I just don't see how people can stand it. But I also see how people have trouble leaving everything they have ever known. Also, the movie had details about a young gay man who was killed in a trailer park in Mississippi, I believe. Odd how you only hear about some of these. Why do only some end up getting national attention? If you have been following Republic of T's Hate Crimes project, you know that there are so many of these murders. Far too many.

Tonight we saw Bright Leaves -- about tobacco, another way people are killed in the South. Actually it wasn't really directly about that. It was about a man's understanding of his family's tobacco history and the relationship everyone, in North Carolina at least, has with tobacco. It was fascinating. To me, because it was so similar to the story of my family (if on a smaller scale) and of course about place I am very familiar with. I can't do this movie justice, but I will say it was really well done and told a really interesting story about how you tell the story of your family, what your relationship to your past is, and all sorts of important thought-provoking things. Tobacco was just one part of it. Highly recommend it. Even if you don't care one bit about tobacco or the South. At least put it in your queue.

Labels: movies