Ballast

Ballast is the film debut of editor-director-writer Lance Hammer. The film is set in the Mississippi Delta and observes (almost exclusively) three family members affected by a suicide. Hammer has been touring behind the film which earned him a best director award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Here's a look at the trailer:

The preferable quicktime version of the trailer here: Ballast

Last night I found myself amid a modest crowd of
spectators in the Westcott Theater where Hammer screened the film and stuck around to hold a Q&A session. The film is largely improvised and performed by non actors who were encouraged to spin their own idioms around Hammer's dialogue. There is no real point of view from any of the characters. Hammer explained that he was more interested in the tone and
authenticity of the location.

"I had been traveling back there for ten years - I was drawn to it."

There is a familiar small-town lull condition to Ballast in which characters wander and suffer in silence, but I'd argue that this film is a cut above art-house cliché. It's really quite interesting in that it conveys an unusual sense of gentleness through its bankrupt atmosphere, shot entirely on location in Mississippi. It helps that it's beautifully photographed, too. From the start these three characters each harbor their own distinct resentment of life, but by the third act there is a smart, amicable, and completely believable gesture in the plot that demonstrates a lot of maturity in Hammer's writing.

If you notice Ballast playing in your local cinema one of these days I'd suggest giving it a try. It successfully strays from most of the indie mumblecore movement that has dominated this past decade.