Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

All 'Hale'

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

RaMell Ross's Hale County This Morning, This Evening could have been one of those things that gets shot by your friend that always has his camera on, and then cobbled together on iMovie, but instead it's a deeply poetic, lyrical film that understands the beauty and importance of small moments of seeming nothingness. The movie ostensibly focuses on Daniel, who goes to college to play basketball, and Quincy, who winds up having children, but the film barely provides any biographical details or soul-searching moments. It simply watches them do what they do. They sometimes speak to, or acknowledge the camera, but mostly not. It's almost like a Frederick Wiseman film, but looser, taking time out for a time-lapse shot of cows in a field or stars at night. The result is less a complete portrait of people or a place than it is a meditation, or an impression, and it's a highly satisfying one. It's fitting that the great Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul served as "creative advisor," as Hale County This Morning, This Evening is the kind of experimental non-fiction work that Weerasethakul's debut feature Mysterious Object at Noon was. Danny Glover was an executive producer. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.