Vernon, Florida
Errol Morris's new film, Vernon, Florida, recently showed at the London Film Festival, where former Berkeley grad student Morris was credited with “one of the most original minds to emerge in documentary film-making in years”; and at the Telluride Film Festival, where veteran viewer Werner Herzog pronounced it “the best film ever.” As he did in Gates of Heaven, certainly one of the best features of 1978, Morris here investigates the private obsessions of “normal” Americans.
“Vernon is a small town in northwest Florida. Nothing ever happens. A police officer, a wild turkey hunter, a farmer, a minister, and the oldest inhabitant discuss wrigglers, garfish, gopher turtles and vultures; they also harbor profound suspicions that life may be very different from what it seems. The first film about metaphysics in the swamp....” --New York Film Festival.
“This is a visionary film which reveals, through its rigorous compositions and unblinking fix on surreal daily life, thematic preoccupations far outside the mere sociological. Each sequence leaves an unsettling residue in the mind: a sense of waiting or expectation, a hint of paranoia, a suggestion of disorder. But throughout one is comforted by the feeling that hope exists somewhere in the midst of the black chaos just offscreen.
“Vernon, Florida is beautifully photographed, hypnotically edited, and often very funny.” --Telluride Film Festival