Documentary Review: "This Land" (2022)

This Land Documentary Review

Written by Stuart D. Monroe

Released by October Coast

Directed by Matthew Palmer

2022, 69 minutes, Not Rated

Released on September 4th, 2022

Review:

Billed as a film “exploring six groups of Americans as they experience Election Day 2020 across the United States”, This Land takes aim at not only the state of political affairs in this country but also at the state of familial affairs due to the state of political affairs in this country. It’s attempting to get a raw look at a microcosm of America today through a diverse array of people, and in that regard This Land is a targeted success.

However, much like the politics it is focusing on, This Land is an aisle with two sides. And on the other side of that aisle is an beautifully captured but often directionally vague film that eschews all the traditional trappings of a documentary (i.e. voiceovers, standard interview footage, creative editing techniques) for a raw and almost artsy look at a cross section of folks who we kind of all know.

There’s a rodeo clown who’s been through some Dusty Rhodes style hard times. Then you have a charming older gay couple comprised of a white liberal and a black conservative. A young black woman shows her distrust of a system that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about her. A Native man doesn’t trust either side because he damn well knows better. They all have stories to tell and opinions to opine that mimic many folks we know (or maybe even ourselves).

The look you are given at these folks is truly unbiased and straight on. It’s the fly on the wall style of documentary, giving you just the camera as viewer. It’s a wonderful concept that, while executed with deftness, could have benefitted greatly from a little bit of a narrative voice in the proceedings. There are no questions being asked and none being answered. Large chunks of This Land come off as aimless and adrift, a skillfully painted and diverse tapestry that often overwhelms and underwhelms in equal measure, often losing you in the process.

This Land doesn’t do anything to incite political debate, but it does genuinely make you think…and that makes it an altogether different kind of political documentary you’d get from someone with an axe to grind. The film opens with a simple question (the only one really posed, as it turns out): “Who are these people we see as the enemy?” That is one question, at least, that is answered, and the answer is us. We are all the enemy.

The question of why is up to you to figure out. This Land presents you the raw footage, so to speak, and it’s one hundred percent up to you to decide what is actually between the lines. Whether or not that ultimately works for you is a little different for everyone, but you have to admire the dedication to the fly on the wall technique.

Grade:

2.5 out of 5.0 stars