For some, this equation reinforces their belief that the film is a transparent spook; they can see right through it. It has no factual evidence for its absurd claims, and those who confess to find meaning in it have only witnessed an imaginary projection within their own mind.

For others, they will encounter a ghost; it will be beautiful and haunting. And, even if they don’t like what it says, it will speak to them. Their experience with the film will be impossible to fully communicate to others, but the spell has been cast.

General Orders director Robert Persons won’t deny he’s trying to cast a spell, but he’s not quick to confirm what it is exactly. In our conversation he stressed the importance of mystery in General Orders. His devotion to the film’s mystery was evident by the caution he took when speaking of it. At one point I – somewhat rudely – snickered at his fear that the film could be spoiled by talking about it too much. If you couldn’t guess, it is not a film that relies heavily upon plot points, but after viewing the film I knew exactly what he meant.

Of course, mystery surrounds Persons as well. He grew up in the middle of Georgia, but never said exactly where. He’s not a filmmaker that has moved up through the production ranks or put in his time networking within a film community. He’s not a young film school graduate who writes a screenplay every 3 months and always has one in his back pocket. Nor is there a film collective who claims him as a member. He literally has appeared to us, seemingly from out of nowhere, film in hand. (In a poetic accident, my recording of our 199 minute conversation was not saved. Some details have been missed.

The spell Persons has cast is old and dead. That does not mean irrelevant or useless, it means the film speaks to us as a force from the past. Half of us were not alive to remember life before the Interstate was built. Many of us have never known someone who knew someone who was alive during the Civil War. Certainly it is difficult for any of us to imagine a time when Georgia was stretched all the way to the Mississippi, or when Native Americans traced the hoofprints of deer. Yet, these are the apparitions that come to us. They arrive in the form of a maps, skulls, sculpture or red die. They warn us about the things to come, and show us signs we don’t quite understand. General Orders is a spirit, left behind in this world, unable to rest until these matters are resolved:

What should the new map look like? Which totem will watch over us?

Persons admits that some parts of General Orders are still a mystery to him. Some of the sequences are literally filmed accounts of dreams he stole to waking life. It is a film about his home, and while knowing more about him does not clarify the film, it does provide a map on how to approach it. Persons came at filmmaking in the same way filmmaking came to us: at the intersection of all other art forms. His background in painting, music, and especially poetry met when he discovered Virginia-Highland’s “Movies Worth Seeing” video rental store. At this junction he lived off of a steady diet of transcendental cinema, devouring Herzog, Tarkovsky, Bresson, and Haneke (to name a few). So strong was the influence of these films that once the near 40 year old began work on General Orders, he no longer wanted to watch any movies until it was complete. Now, 11 years later, he admits, “I like these Apatow movies. I would watch those.”

It is safe to point out – without any fear of spoilage – that General Orders No. 9 bears no resemblance to The 40 Year Old Virgin. However, I believe Persons is as skilled at creating dense, psycho-geographical, visually stunning film poems as Apatow is at creating crude-but-smart, character driven, adult comedies. Still, there is more to be desired in Persons work. General Orders proves without a doubt that he has no trouble establishing tone, and he understands how to pace a film (a tip of the hat to producer/editor Phil Walker and composer Chris Hoke). No one can dispute the awards the film has received for cinematography. But even Persons surmised that he wants to make films that connect deeper with audiences than General Orders.

For my part, I felt that General Orders sometimes creates mystery by narrowly avoiding questions, thereby leaving some claims unsupported. But as we have learned from science and art, we are no danger running out of mysteries, and mystery is born out of discovery. I’m not willing to say here specifically what moments of the film felt unexplored, but I will say that the passages that concern the city felt intentionally naive. Perhaps that’s a product of the narrator’s anger, poetic license, my relationship to Atlanta or maybe the point is lost on me, but I have a feeling that anyone who has affection for city life will feel their affinity is under attack.

Still, I remain floored by his command over the material, his continuity of thought, the surprises along the way, the fear I felt during the city passages, and the beauty of Georgia that is invisible from I-75 to Tampa. It is a film that is in all ways refreshing. Fortunately it has been labeled a documentary because it reshapes our expectations of the form, and unfortunately because many will only see that it is not aligned with existing expectations. However, this subversion must continue.

During that awkward part of any interview where you have to ask “what’s next?,” Mr. Persons shared with me his excitement that he’s “been starting to get ideas lately.” This simple confession was very encouraging. I look forward to seeing more of his work, but I hope I don’t have to wait another 11 years. Until then, I will see General Orders No. 9 at least several more times to see if the mystery will unravel.

I hear, that if you visit the old Cinefest Film Theater on the Georgia State campus this Friday and Saturday at 7pm you might see a ghost. (Full schedule of possible sightings below.)

SCHEDULE
Friday 8/12 5:30 pm, 7:00 pm – Q&A AFTERWARDS
Saturday 8/13 3:30 pm, 5:30 pm, 7:00 pm – LIVE MUSIC / Q&A
Sunday 8/14 3:30 pm, 5:30 pm
Monday through Friday 8/15-8/19 5:30pm, 7:00pm
Saturday 8/20 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:00pm
Sunday 8/21 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:00pm

By Paul Sbrizzi

Snow On Tha Bluff is a raw and vivid, hybrid documentary / narrative film that cuts through the hype and mythology to deliver a clear-eyed, uncensored look at gangsta life—and death—in the inner city. Director/writer Damon Russell teams up with co-writer and lead actor Curtis Snow, a charismatic, self-described dope dealer and robbery boy, to tell a story based on Snow’s actual experiences in the Bluff, the violent, poverty-stricken neighborhood of Atlanta . Far from bleak, it’s by turns funny, scary, warm and thoughtful, and Snow carries it with megawatts of star power.

It opens with naïve outsiders getting robbed—a multi-culti group of hip college kids who think they know how to navigate the Bluff to score drugs (and this frames a basic conceit of the film: for people who think they know the hood, here’s a strong dose of reality). Curtis talks his way into their car, robs them, and uses their camera to tell his story.

We’re instantly brought into the thick of the subculture: the careful planning and execution of a violent raid on rival dealers unfolds, the dialogue spoken in the rich cadence of the local dialect—Russell and Snow are committed to showing this world’s genuine texture and rhythms rather than streamlining it in any way. Next thing it’s morning and there’s been a murder (real cops, real cop cars, and the aftermath of a real crime are cleverly used here and throughout the film). “Like I say it just a regular day in the hood, know rah mean,” says Curtis, “back to your regularly scheduled program.”

A trip to grandma’s house brings Curtis a stern warning: “It’s nothing in the streets but trouble, and death,” she says, “there’s just one step between you and death: you never know when you’re makin’ that last step.” Cut to Curtis out on the porch with a liquor bottle, laughing: “That shit’s scary!”

He quickly puts grandma out of mind. A dope party, another armed robbery, and a surreal fight between two women in the back seat of an old car (one of them literally rips the other one’s pants off and then looks with concern at the state of her fingernail) are juxtaposed with Curtis’ cuddly visits to see his baby mama and his son, baby Curtis, who live in an incongruously quiet and tidy condo complex on the other side of town. “I had to make that move there,” confides Curtis, “let them folks know, know rah mean, hey hey hey I love my baby, I love her, everything good.”

In his asides we see his mind constantly plotting, strategizing offense and defense, always in the fight. The narrative follows an increasingly violent series of attacks and reprisals between Curtis and White Hat, his stealthy nemesis. In one chilling scene, Curtis, freshly out of prison, talks to his crew about going after White Hat’s family: “My heart gone right now. I got a heart but it’s gone.”

The film’s underlying theme is the reality of survival. “Well drugs kill now, but at the same time, shit, they also help you out, they pay your rent if you ain’t got no job,” says Curtis. When his baby mama talks to him about making money the right way, he drawls back “Ain’t no right or no wrong way—there’s the need way.” And there’s little hope that any of this will change: one of the film’s most intense and evocative images is baby Curtis repeatedly smacking his daddy’s plate of crack cocaine baggies with a Mylar “thank you” balloon, as Curtis reminisces about watching his uncle fill baggies when he was a child himself.

Still, you sense that stealing and selling dope, for Curtis, is also a bit of a compulsion. “When you need something, or you got to have something,” he grins, “only one way you gonna get it right then and there.”

The look of the film is appropriately gritty, the use of night vision adding to the intensity of the robberies, and the rough, hand-held footage of the chaotic night scenes contrasting nicely with the sober, reflective mood of daytime. Russell incorporates surprising elements like a playground peek-a-boo with baby Curtis, bringing a warmth and sense of space to the film. The non-actors are uniformly excellent, vivid as characters and utterly natural on camera.

The feat of combining staged and documentary footage is accomplished with great success, because the intention isn’t to moralize or sensationalize, but to accurately portray the lifestyle. Snow On Tha Bluff is in its own way an important movie—it’s the act of taking the camera back, and creating an authentic, uncensored self-portrait of a man and his community.

Paul Sbrizzi is a film writer for Hammer to Nail, and a features programmer for the Slamdance Film Festival.

Battle for Bunker Hill ** Stars out of Four

Peter Salem, a convicted Wall Street exec, arrives in a small Kansas town to see his two daughters; only his embittered ex Hailey and her fiancé Jim, the richest man in town, aren’t having it.  Peter’s set to leave when something strange occurs:  A civil alert sounds, followed by a total power outage and a failure of any device controlled by a computer chip to operate.  With no means to communicate or receive information, the town is an island in the wheat fields.  Uncertainty leads to fear, then panic, then paranoia.  Jim and his redneck cronies seize control of the town, in the name of protection from the unknown.  But his action really covers a desire to drive Peter away, lest he reconciles with Hailey.

The Battle for Bunker Hill resemble The Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.”:  Bunker Hill doesn’t rise to the tension and creepiness of that episode, but like it, the focus of the townsfolk shifts from the unseen problem to the neighbor who is seen, and is believed probably to be behind it all.  The film speaks to the post-911 world (Peter, who was recovering from a bender, just missed being in Tower Two when the plane struck) where any unexplained occurrence can be construed as a threat, especially if a foreigner’s around; and our current political climate where groups use fear to turn citizens against another groups’ agendas to their own.

Bunker Hill has some kinks and rough edges.  The pacing could be tighter, the script more polished and the acting better.  It is still an entertaining actioner, and speaks its message loud and clear.

The Battle for Bunker Hill screens Saturday, April 17 at 4:15 pm, and Tuesday, April 20 at 4:35 pm.

The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek ** Stars out of Four

This is a yarn of four misfits – a drug addicted gay colonel, an elderly Chinese general, a nerdy ex-slave and a sociopathic teen prostitute – whose destinies bring them together to save the Union during the Civil War, told in a send-up of Ken Burns’ uber-doc The Civil War.  The elements of The Civil War are parodied to great comic effect, from the pan and scans of historical photos to the commentary by minor historians and readings of historical documents.  Director Wendy J. Cohen and her artistic team do a bang up job of concocting fictitious period art, photos and music that blend with actual documents.

However, the film loses its punch midway through.  At about 100 minutes long, the mock-visual style grows tired and the jokes thin as the story becomes heavy with the characters’ back-story and plot lines.  Efforts to pump up the humor late in the show fail to bring it back to the level shown at the start.

The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek screens Saturday, April 17 at 2:20 pm, and Tuesday, April 20 at 12:20 pm.  Director Wendy Jo Cohen and others will be in attendance.

Wheedle’s Groove **** Stars out of Four

Soul music makes one think of music cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, and Memphis.  Not Seattle:  That’s the home of grunge.  But during the 60s and 70s, Seattle was host to scores of soul and funk groups like Black on White Affair, The Soul Swingers and Cold, Bold & Together, who packed clubs and competed with mainstream acts for spots on local soul music charts.  This scene was largely forgotten until local DJ Mr. Supreme begin finding 45 records (remember those?!) for those groups in music store bargain bins.

With Mr. Supreme’s collection as a basis, the filmmakers of Wheedle’s Groove resurrect the lost history of soul music in Seattle.  A rich history it is:  The filmmakers state that they’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg.  Former band members and Seattle musicians – including Quincy Jones, Sir-Mix-A-Lot and soft jazz king Kenny G – recount the groups, the music and culture of the Seattle soul scene.  The filmmakers also attempt to explain why these groups never – or at best, barely – achieved mainstream recognition and the demise of Seattle soul.

One has to wonder why the producing giant Quincy Jones was not very aware of the scene in his own home town at the time, and why he didn’t help very many of the Seattle groups reach the mainstream.  The Seattle musicians, though, hold no grudge against Jones or anyone, or show any bitterness for not hitting the big time.  They had their time, and loved it along with their band mates, happy to still have music (few of them continued careers in music) and their memories.  In scenes of a CD release party, these men, now in their fifties and sixties, sing and play with the same fervor as in their heyday, and sound as tight and clean.

Mr. Supreme says there are probably more Seattle soul recordings out there waiting to be found.  For now, Wheedle’s Groove serves as a primer to Seattle soul, and motivator for seekers who would complete its history.

Screens Sunday, April 18 at 7:10 pm.  The filmmakers will be in attendance.

The Eyes of Me ** Stars out of Four

Shot in Austin, Texas, The Eyes of Me follows four blind teens at The Texas School for the Blind over the course of a year.  Each student talks frankly about his or her disability, how the school has helped them deal with it, and their life ambitions.  In between, we see them experience the ups and downs of life.  One teen is Chas, an aspiring rapper who makes the decision to drop out of school and live independently.

Told in a straight-forward style, the film uses rotoscope animation to illustrate the subjects’ stories; this is done sparingly, though, thus avoiding a gimmicky look.

The film serves to remind us of the humanity of the disabled.  It is easy for the “able” to see them as less than whole because of a disability, instead of people who dream, achieve and face trials and obstacles apart from those resulting from their disability.

Screens Tuesday, April 20 at 7:15 pm and Wednesday, April 21 at 5:00 pm.

Stephen Hart is a Clayton County Georgia librarian by day, and a screenwriter and filmmaker nights and weekends. He is a staff writer for CinemATL.