A Life on the Farm

This was an interesting tale about an eccentric farmer in England, who recorded his "life" on video and film.

The people who put this film together and the people commenting on it, find the record of his life very interesting but remember that all of them are either people who knew him or people whose hobby / business is found film.

Entertaining for perhaps 30 or 40 minutes and then just more of the same. If you watch the film, you can safely stop before the end and miss nothing new.

Charles Carson was a quirky farmer from England who produced a series of VHS videos and photo artworks for friends, as well as for his own amusement, in the 1980s and 1990s. He's a unique character, and his story has potential as a documentary. The strength of the material produced by Mr. Carson keeps the film interesting, but the documentary production itself is less successful.

"A Life on the Farm" may serve as a lesson for other documentarians on how not to use "experts". Mystery Science Theater has its fans, but the last thing viewers want to see in a documentary is people totally unrelated to the source material explaining what we ourselves just watched on screen and what we should think of it. Other than those directly related to the subject, most of the "experts" here appear to have as much knowledge of Mr. Carson as anyone else doing a quick Google search.

Also questionable, some guests in this documentary appeared to be using the background of some interview shots to promote various websites, companies, or products. You might be watching a segment about mental illness, or a funeral, and the experts appear on screen with a banner for their latest YouTube episode in the background.

The documentary was worth watching, and I appreciate the director's effort to keep the outsider art of Mr. Carson alive for future generations. Hopefully the next project from this filmmaker will skip unrelated talking heads, focusing on people with first hand knowledge of the source material.