I'm from Marianna, Florida, which is about 20 minutes from Vernon. Take that for what it's worth, but this film reminds me of both why I left and why I sometimes long to return.
Errol Morris finds some of the most beautiful freaks ever committed to film. Any fan of the documentary film medium is doing themselves a disservice by not viewing this film a number of times.
I regard "Vernon, Florida" as up there with what is in my opinion Errol's best work -- "Gates of Heaven", "The Thin Blue Line," and "A Brief History of Time."
"'I like the idea of making films about ostensibly nothing,' Morris told The New Yorker's Mark Singer. 'That's what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we're in a position of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we're just a bunch of apes running around.'"
That's what I enjoy about Errol's films -- grabbing hold of just about any bit of chaos in the universe, and being able to find and appreciating the beauty and wonder that it holds.
