While it is still a personal documentary from McElwee, the master of the form, "Bright Leaves" is a film that speaks far beyond the personal. As McElwee films across the south, it seems everyone-- smoker or nonsmoker-- has a relationship with tobacco. The most amazing thing about the film is the filmmaker's even handedness and understanding for the pull that cigarette smoking has on his subjects, even though the filmmaker himself has never had a tobacco habit to peak of. Given Michael Moore's work and other popular documentaries of the day, the expectation is that "Bright Leaves" would have a stern and condemning view of the tobacco industry. On the contrary, he gives humorous insight on the age-old habit. McElwee's writing, as found in his narration, is incredibly poetic as it rolls along the blue hills of North Carolina. Even weeks later, I think of that last sequence of shots, the tanker of tobacco heading off to far lands, the shots of his son, and understand why I myself, like so many, have this attraction to smoking, or what McElwee calls the urge to give pause to time, and likens to his own filmmaking and photography.
The most how genius moment features Vlada Petric, and McElwee's long standing side character, Charlene, is still a gift. The film really does stick with you for a long, long time, and deserves lots of exposure and great distribution.
