I saw this film as part of the Ghent filmfestival 2011. My reason to book this film was its original format, as could be derived from the announcement. The latter also contained a bold reference to a film that I much admired: Winter's Bone.
To start with the reference to Winter's Bone: the resemblance proved to be literally superficial. I refer to the looks of the people, their houses, and the way they live in general. Main difference with Winter's Bone is that nothing really happens in Putty Hill. We witnessed a series of empty dialogs, starting with How Are You, Good, etcetera, but ending soon after that with nothing important to remember. I know these opening lines are standard, but what followed after that remained nearly empty.
It all did nothing to tell us about the deceased, other than an OD. What his relationship was with the interviewee, was also left unclear. Other than bare facts as being a relative or a school mate, it revealed nothing about how they got along, and whether they saw any pointers leading towards the OD. This utter lack of information was intentional, and meant to be the core of the message (as I extracted from the synopsis): no one knew the deceased very well.
A technical fault that I observed several times, was the background noise with some of the interviews. It made it hard to understand what was being said. This cannot (and should not) be intentional.
After 1 hour the interview format is dropped. We see two real-life scenes that make this film a bit interesting, one before and one after the funeral. We observe how the funeral worked out indirectly on people standing by. It was clear to me that it was rather the atmosphere around a funeral that triggered the emotional outbursts, and not because of some good friend died.
The funeral after-party between these emotional scenes was a bit interesting, mostly while being different from what we here (in The Netherlands) are used to do around a funeral. A large photo of the deceased was prominently visible. Alas, neither the photo nor the speeches revealed anything further about him. And the nightly visit to the junkie's former house also failed to reveal something interesting; it left us literally in the dark.
I've seen some positive reviews about this film, but I don't get it. For the public prize competition, I marked it with a 2 stars (out of 5). The actual contents deserved 1 star, but the original setup worked a bit to compensate. It may encourage the film makers to repeat the process, at which time they should take a subject where people show more substance. And finally, before I forget it: thanks for the live demonstration how graffiti is produced.
