Ballast
Director: Lance Hammer
Year Released: 2008
Rating: 1.0
Artsy pity-party - taking place in Mississippi - where a man kills himself out of misery, a young boy steals and does drugs and continuously threats his Uncle with a pistol (for money), and the boy's mother tries to hold down a job and pay the bills. Humorless and morbid, it consists of little more than muddy shades of gray and a massive rain-soaked field: it relies heavily on pathos for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and is always cautious to not have its characters reveal too much (the plot is basically treated as an afterthought). The faces sag and the tears are free to flow, but at least the birds can fly away.
