Putty Hill (2010)

If you accumulate all prior reviews that have rated this film 4 out of 10 stars or less, then you'll gather enough eyewitness testimony from those of us who are now miserable, poor saps who were so misfortunate to have been subjected to this train wreck of a film -- a very slow-moving train wreck. Sound editing and general editing are performed with such cluelessness that you feel confident this film can serve as a guide on how not to make a film. I like slow-paced films when they have vision and substance and POV, but when there's no cement or glue to the story...to keep the narrative and plot moving somewhere, then you have problems. Lots of problems. Acting is fine. Writing and direction is beyond problematic.

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.

Putty Hill did everything right. I'll skip any in depth discussion of formal excellence -- real critics like Roger Ebert and Richard Brody have already said much about that -- and just say that almost every shot, every element of the film is fantastic. Porterfield has a great instinct for composition, for length of shots, for what to focus on and what to leave off the screen. He introduces a few unique elements, including a lot of lingering shots away from prevalent dialogue. The visual style alone is reason to see the film.But it's not the most important reason. Putty Hill accomplishes something very, very exciting on the level of the heart. In a brief Q&A after the film screened, Porterfield was asked about his decision to shoot the neighborhood and people he did, rather than any of the "shine" that the city of Baltimore has. Porterfield answered that it was part of where he came from, and that he saw it as an ethical responsibility to represent the working class in a moderate, non- sensational light. Much more than something like The Wire (or, say, Winter's Bone, another contemporary film with a similar focus on devastated, poor working class America), Putty Hill does not exploit poor, mostly "white trash" (as one British writer called them) characters, does not sensationalize or wring out their dire situations in hopes of creating great drama. The film is stark and realistic, but the treatment of characters is sympathetic. This is not a film that tries to shock the viewer with a saturation of hyperrealistic details about "what life is like on the other side" of the poverty line: it's not all drugs and violence and grime. Instead, Putty Hill is a film that shows a group of people living their lives just as they know how to. Sure, some things are dark, some things are gritty, some things are sad... but on the other hand these are people, like anybody, with great capacity for love and understanding. Putty Hill is the greatest current example I have seen of art treating the lives of the working class with both realism and respect. It's not coddling, it's not political, it's not a shock piece. The camera rolls, and what we see is Life, with all of its imperfections, problems, and beauties intact. When this accomplishment of subject is combined with stunning formal elements, what results is one of the most exciting, important films I've seen in years.

A junkie's house, a boy's death. Girls smoking in the woods. Cops on the hunt for a bank robber. Grandma is a good egg. Tagger – "Rest in Peace, Cory." A girl comes home to her estranged father's tattoo party. A karaoke wake. Visiting a dead brother's junkie lair at night. All he kept was his skateboard. The friendship of girls.Putty Hill in the Northeast of Baltimore is both urban and bucolic. A filmmaker was working a coming-of-age tale about a group of metal-heads skirting the fringes of Baltimore. It was a timely script, but financing fell through. To rescue the work of everyone involved, he shot a new film in 12 days.A triumph of salvage. Not to be missed.