RICH HILL plays Hot Docs 2014

If Terrence Malick ever made a documentary about lower-class life in a small American town, he would make RICH HILL.

Fresh off a Sundance Grand Jury Prize for documentary, this startlingly beautiful film from directors Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo arrive at Hot Docs tonight for its international premiere. Like many of the best pieces of nonfiction, it takes a simple concept and paints it with bold colours. In this case we are taken to the town of Rich Hill, Missouri (population 1,396). It’s the sort of place that once had a lot going for it, but has been hit hard with the changing American economy for lower and middle class workers. The film tells the story through the eyes of three teenagers.

There’s Appachey, a 12-year-old who seems most at home on his skateboard and shows flashes of creativity, but battles a lot of anger issues. There’s Harley, the 13-year-old son of a woman doing prison time. He is full of both angst and good humour, but is handcuffed by a great amount of personal and familial demons. Finally, there’s Andrew – perhaps the brightest and most promising of the three subjects. There is nothing in his character or personality that will hold him back from great things, but his parents’ lack of drive and opportunity could smother his prospects before they’ve even had a chance to bear fruit.

The film is not only a story of these three boys lives, but life in small-town America in the 21st Century. That story is one that is both deeply depressing, and breathtakingly beautiful.

What we come to understand quickly is that Rich Hill has nothing going for it. It’s citizens are honest and hard-working; the sort of people who aren’t afraid of a hard day’s work, and need precious little frills in return. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity for these sorts of workers, since all major industrial work got out of Dodge long ago. What’s left now is the sort of town that people leave – for one reason or another. However, even within a place like this, there is a food chain, and someone needs to be at the bottom of it. That’s where the three families we meet come in. They are the ones that are looked down upon. The ‘have-nothings’ in a community of ‘have-nots’. Often their status has very little to do with what these teenagers could offer their community, and more to do with what their parents already haven’t offered.

Watching this documentary illustrate this state of affairs, is profoundly sad. The only way to keep the audience in it is to lace the story with beauty – and RICH HILL does. In abundance.

Long wordless swaths of this film play out and allow the camera to linger on teenagers being teenagers. Whether they are turning handsprings on the lawn, or enjoying a county fair, or setting off fireworks, the camera lingers and steeps its footage with vivid colours. They find aching amounts of beauty in the everyday moments of life in this town, giving so much of it a true romance and a curious appeal. Rich Hill, MO is not the sort of town you’d spend more than five minutes in if you weren’t born there. It’s a place you pass through on your way to someplace grander. At yet to see it through the eyes of these visually-gifted filmmakers, you would believe that it is a place of joy and beauty. The browns and greys of what once was is now the “burnt sienna” and “slate” in a splendid vision of Americana.

Combine it all, and we have been given an extraordinary document of life in modern rural America. It’s a story you didn’t think you needed to hear, until you started hearing it. At that point, it’s all you can do to stop listening. The future may hold better things for Appachey, Harley, and Andrew – heck, this film might even be the break they’ve been waiting for. For now though, the present and the past are all RICH HILL can leave us with – and it’s a present and past both wildly beautiful, and deeply troubling.

RICH HILL plays Hot Docs 2014 tonight, Monday April 28th – 7pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox. It plays again at Isabel Bader Theatre on Wednesday April 30th – 4pm, and finally at Hart House on Sunday May 4th at 12:30pm (official website)