Roberto Minervini goes to Louisiana, where he documents drug addicts and anti-government militias. The two residents of Louisiana go about their daily routines of shooting up and shooting their mouths off.
Cowriter (with Denise Ping Lee)/director Roberto Minervini has found a forgotten pocket of America that exemplifies the rage evident in the 2016 presidential race and, at least in the section devoted to Mark, it is a surprisingly complex picture.
Minervini has captured a segment of American society too often ignored and mocked, but sometimes he's overtaken by the urge to romanticize decrepitude.
If you want to get a sense of that broader spectrum -- and of some of the most exciting, unnerving filmmaking being done in the United States -- see The Other Side. And come to understand just how apt its title is.
It's the little details that hit the hardest in Roberto Minervini's new documentary The Other Side-an exploration of extreme poverty in northern Louisiana ...
It's ultimately hard to tell if the movie is trying to render its subjects with some humanity or otherwise if it's taking advantage of all these poor, beautiful losers.
I acknowledge this film's power, and still feel uneasy about it -- and unsure of its point. But there's no question that in many scenes, it captures remarkable details.
It's like Larry Clark with stakes, with a beating heart, or Harmony Korine with candor instead of vaudeville. Whatever the mix of truth to fiction, a sense of authenticity pervades each gesture.
