George Washington

"I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields"… Nasia

George Washington is a meandering, moody, and hypnotic look at a group of black children, ages 9 to 14, during one summer in North Carolina. This was my second viewing and it remained a deeply satisfying experience. Though at times self-conscious, George Washington brings to mind Terence Malick's Days of Heaven with its voice-over narration, languid, dreamy tone, and gorgeous cinematography.

The youngsters are shown talking and playing aimlessly among the squalid junkyards and abandoned buildings of their neighborhood. They do not talk much about their hopes for the future but focus on their families and their girl friends and boy friends. The dialogue is partly improvised and, like Days of Heaven, allows the characters to speak in a manner that is slightly more poetic and contemplative than the average teenager.

The narrator, Nasia (Candace Evanofski), is a 12-year-old who has just broken up with her 13-year-old boyfriend Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) because, in her view, he's too young and immature. She's more attracted to Buddy's friend George (Donald Holden), a quiet and serious boy who always wears a helmet to protect his soft skull. They hang out with their friends, a mismatched pair of amateur car thieves named Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) and Sonya (Rachael Handy), and also with Rico (Paul Schneider), a local railroad worker. Buddy shares his sadness with Rico who comforts him with his own story of lost love.

When an unexpected tragedy occurs, each of them must look closer at themselves and struggle to make an emotional connection with the events. They come to their realizations at different moments throughout the film and slowly begin to change in different ways. George, for one, after saving a drowning boy in a swimming pool becomes a neighborhood hero. Those realizations, however, do not provide an instantaneous fix and Green does not provide a forced happy ending.

Green has said, "One of the reasons I made this movie is because movies talk down to kids, put them as a cute little kid with a box of cereal and a witty joke," says Green. "You watch movies like Kindergarten Cop and it's like, 'Oh, a kid said something about sex. Isn't that funny?' It's just annoying and it makes me sad for their parents."

George Washington presents a view of teens that is not condescending but shows each character as a person of dignity and worth. It uniquely captures the confusion of adolescence, the need to belong, to believe life is or can be important, and the universal longing for love. Green has looked into the squalor and found beauty. Like a poem of Walt Whitman, he has expressed the divine in the commonplace.

George Washington is the kind of film I instantly respond to for the simple reason that it is pure, perfect cinema. This is what FILM can do when free of the constraints of popular movie-making. When it ended it made me think of that old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." Well what happens when that picture moves? You get George Washington. I don't want to spoil the film for anyone reading this by needless plot exposition that I find so annoying in most professional reviews. But the film does center around a small American town, and a group of poor children during the long, hot summer months. This film has absolutely wonderful cinematography, better than most big budget Hollywood films, and the mood it sets is alternately playful, melancholy, surreal, and poignant. Many times I was reminded of my own childhood; scenes play out in a very organic way and the actors, mostly children, are all wonderful. Before I saw this film I had heard that one of the director's influences was Terrence Malick, a filmmaker I love dearly, and George Washington reminded me a lot of Malick's "Days of Heaven." He uses voiceover in much the same way Malick did in that film...alternating between narration, random thoughts, and character exposition. The voiceover use in this film, as in Days of Heaven, is spoken the way someone might hear their own thoughts. Watch the movie and you'll see what I mean. Although the movie is about children, it's not really "for" kids, but I would venture to say that any kid from about age 12 and up would be all the richer for seeing this movie. However in this age of short attention spans, and video game editing I don't hold out much hope that many kids would appreciate a film like this. But for adults, especially lovers of the cinema, this should be required viewing. It's up to us support these kinds of movies so we can see more of them in the future. I saw this for free on the independent film channel, but I plan on buying the DVD anyway...George Washington is a film I will be proud to add to my collection. I loved it.

Don't look for a simple, linear plot line or resolutions to what you think are the problems. "George Washington" is the offspring of "Gummo" and "Stand by Me", and a very distant relative to "Eraserhead" (but with a soul). The dialog is often beyond the age, character, and scope of the kids depicted (similar to "Brick"), which can be disconcerting, yet, when suspending disbelief, remained interesting. The scoring is dark and moody – and seldom lets up. On occasion, the lack of actor training can be seen in the kids, but for the most part they do a good job. The locations are full of dying and dead culture – rich, textural, beautiful crumbling Industrial Revolution. This is a ponderous, sometimes overly artful film that is none the less worth seeing and considering afterwards. It has things to say – and you're expected to use your own mind.

Even though GEORGE WASHINGTON lacks the star power of the Reel 13 Indies of late (IMAGINARY HEROES, SUNSHINE STATE), it's still a high profile independent film. It's legendary in the industry as the first film from indie auteur David Gordon Green. It also already has its own Criterion Collection Edition on DVD, so Channel 13 can hardly claim to have made a discovery here.

As disappointing as it is that Reel 13 has gone away from bringing us films that are new to us (though not that many of them were very good), you have to acknowledge that at the very least, we get an independent film that is wonderfully cinematic and well-crafted. David Gordon Green has a pretty simple formula – not a great deal of extraneous camera movement, realistic characters and scenes that are lyrically cut together with beautifully photographed landscapes. There is a certain poetry to his work that is all his own – a style that he worked to even greater impact with his follow-up film ALL THE REAL GIRLS.

As similar as the feel of GEORGE WASHINGTON is to that film, it's narrative is quite different and deals with a handful of young kids in a small, poor town somewhere in the South (Arkansas? NC?) as they deal with tragedy and the unstoppable nature of growing up. The kids, whom I suspect are all untrained actors, are all quite good, albeit playing characters that are perhaps more mature than their respective ages suggest. That aspect, along with the verisimilitude and honesty of the scenes, reminds me a lot of Peter Sollett's work. Not as much RAISING VICTOR VARGAS (which airs on Reel 13 in May) than the short it was based on – FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING – only Green accomplishes a similar effect without a hand-held camera.

There a couple of nitpicky things that keeps GEORGE WASHINGTON from being as effective as the previously mentioned ALL THE REAL GIRLS. For starters, it's a little slow and hard to hear at times. Paul Schneider, who is outstanding in a much more significant role in REAL GIRLS, is more of a distraction here than an asset. His character, ostensibly intended for comic relief, is like a sixth toe on one foot – it doesn't stop you from walking normally, but it's really unnecessary. I also felt the voice-over was also extraneous – as if Green didn't trust us to comprehend his themes. The biggest issue I had with the film, though, is the surreal turn it takes in its last twenty minutes or so. Without giving too much away, it relates to changes in the main kid character, which are personified by a radical shift in wardrobe. While I see the overarching purpose of the choice – to explicate how the character deals with some of his misfortunes – it is a major shift in tone for the piece and stands out like a sore thumb against the quiet beauty of the rest of the film.

Still and all, beggars can't be choosers and having sat through some very questionable indie films over the last few months, GEORGE WASHINGTON is a very welcome change.

(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)

GEORGE WASHINTON / (2000) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

"George Washington" details the drowsy lives of several preteen friends during their last summer of childhood, and it feels so accurate how the characters behave in the slumberous, low standard society. This is the summer where their first crushes arrive and flowering sexuality gives them confidence instead of confusion. It is a summer where the heat is consistent and the days seemingly last forever with nothing to do. The movie is about how a tragedy can forever change the course of individual lives so unexpectedly and abruptly.

The setting is North Carolina on an industrial landscape, where we meet several black kids between the ages of ten and thirteen. The preteens are Buddy (Curtis Cotton III), who has a crush on Nasia (Candace Evanofski). She leaves him a young fellow named George (Donald Holden). George is a very interesting character; the plates in his skull did not meet correctly, so he must wear a protective helmet to cover his delicate head. George saves a child from drowning, even though his head is never supposed to get wet. He then walks around with a cape on, feeling accomplished like a hero. Then an accident happens, leaving the remaining characters with a lot to think about.

There is not a lot of active conflict here, just an examination of behaviors of a variety of characters. They are not your typical characters, though; they are so brilliantly portrayed they feel like regular, ordinary people. The performances are extraordinary. The atmosphere and melancholy setting play large roles in the monotonous tone, comparable conceivably with the work of Terence Malick. There is an honest and true sentimentality here, like the director, David Gordon Greene, wanted to inject personal and thought-provoking ideas in his innovative style, which sometimes seems a bit preachy.

"George Washington" is one of the most under appreciated movies of 2000. As I look over the Academy Award nominees I am disturbed. For the first time in a long time the members chose box-office successes over movie quality. Among the movies missing from the ballot are "Human Resources," "The Virgin Suicides," and "George Washington." The film is one of the year's most poignant and heartbreaking. Everything that happens here is so lively, so convincing, so extraordinarily absorbing. It is a movie not to be missed by those looking for great underrated movies.