Amy Nicholson‘s rather compelling new fly-on-the -wall documentary is about a particular piece of American life in its death throes. It’s all about a very shabby rundown trailer park In Chincoteague, Virginia and the lives of its blue-collared residents that have lived there each summer for several decades.. Now this is to be their very last year here as some unknown developers are about snatch this lucrative lakeside land back and build, what we are lead to believe, will be luxury leisure housing.
Its tight knit community made be very white (there is a single black resident) and totally heterosexual, but finding your own ‘chosen family’ where you belong and can take refuge, is something that so many queer people can relate too.
Nicolson’s camera silently captures these mainly older folk…..often squeezing adult children plus grandchildren and countless pets …. into tiny cramped spaces as they all happily celebrate the summer months. The more we see of them , the more we sympathise that this very content community are being forced to now change their way of lives for reasons out of their control. Its supposedly all in the name of progress.
Looking at this from the outside, it seems obvious that this way of life is doomed, but for the next 70 minutes Nicholson ensures we are very firmly on the side of the residents, and start to feel their dismay about losing this life style that would love to cling too for ever
With the total lack of any spoken commentary there are gaps in their stories which raises questions in our minds. Most importantly no discussion on anything remotely political, and even though this may have been actually filmed a couple of years ago, Trump and his maga movement have been around since the last election. These residents are very likely to be his supporters. At least some of them.
Plus it seems totally irrational that no comment at all was made on screen about the solitary African-American in their midst, especially as she had her own rather tragic family story.
Having said that what Nicholson shows us is the reality of the record of a disappearing way of life which makes for fascinating & compulsive viewing for us on the outside.
Soon to be released in select movie theaters and then on VOD on Sept 9th
ROGER WALKER-DACK Creator, Editor-in-Chief Miami Beach, FL / Provincetown, MA IG @QUEERGURU Member of G.A.L.E.C.A. (Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) and NLGJA The Association of LGBT Journalists. and The Online Film Critics Society. Ex Contributing Editor The Gay Uk & Contributor Edge Media Former CEO and Menswear Designer of Roger Dack Ltd in the UK
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