Ballast

source: Ballast

Melancholy is an apt description of this film. It takes place in Mississippi during the winter. Its' about a woman with her son whose ex-husband has just died (from suicide). His twin brother also attempted suicide. These 3 main characters (mother, son and ex-brother-in-law) slowly undergo a transformation during this film for the better. Initially the young boy is mixed up in the wrong drug crowd and is giving his Mom a tough time. As the film moves along, she re-opens the store that her ex-husband had and the boy is gaining some equilibrium. We get to know a lot of what is ailing the mother and son, but there is not much revelation as to why these suicide and attempted suicide took place. There is also not much to explain the combativeness between the mother and her ex-brother-in-law. So the story moves along until…. It abruptly ends. I thought there was something the matter with the DVD. Did they run out of money? Was it a budget cut?

Winner of cinematography and director awards at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for the Jury Prize at Sundance and Berlin, Lance Hammer's Ballast is an American original. Performed by non-professional actors and shot with a hand-held camera, the film looks at the lives of three distraught people in the Mississippi Delta, conveying with passion their ability to discover their own humanity and transcend the circumstances of their life. Using only the ambient sounds of nature, and portraying events in an elliptical manner that forces us to fill in the blanks, Ballast is reminiscent of the minimalist masterpieces of the Dardennes' and Charles Burnett, but has a unique rhythm all its own. Shot on 35 mm along the Mississippi Delta, it is a film that quickly establishes mood and suspense and creates an emotional range that travels from anger and sadness to hope and joy. As the film opens, 12 year-old James (JimMyron Ross) chases a flock of birds in an open cotton field during the winter. The camera then shifts to a distraught man, Lawrence (Michael J. Smith, Sr.) sitting alone in his living room in the house next to his sister-in-law, Marlee (Tarra Riggs). The man is paralyzed with depression and unable to communicate due to the death of his brother Darius who, as discovered by a neighbor John (Johnny McPhail), has died in his bed of a self-inflicted overdose. Sullenly, Lawrence responds to the tragedy by going outside and shooting himself in the lungs. Rushed to the hospital, he is badly wounded but recovers after several weeks in the hospital. In trouble with dope dealers, young James keeps his working mother from discovering that he owes $100 for crack cocaine, but it is revealed when James' TV is taken by the gang and both mother and son are assaulted in their cars. James, who owns a scooter, rides to Lawrence's place and demands his father's money at gunpoint. Things seem to hit rock bottom when Marlee is fired from her job cleaning toilets and Lawrence, still in shock, is unable to reopen his small food market. With nowhere to go but up, the three begin a long process of discovery of their indelible connection to life and to each other. Unfolding like a documentary, Ballast conveys a sense of immediacy and a lyricism that gathers momentum as the film progresses. Accents are difficult to fathom (the film wisely provides English subtitles), yet there is a naturalism and authenticity here that keeps us engaged throughout. While none of the actors have ever acted before, you would not know it from the power of their performances, especially from Tarra Riggs and young Ross. It is a film, however, that definitely requires patience from the viewer. There are no markers to tell us what we are supposed to feel about the people we see on the screen, yet we remain tuned in to their struggles as if they were our own and in many respects they are. As they discover that who they are is larger than their circumstances, we discover a similar truth in our own life.

Hand held camera, over amplified traffic noises, mumbling dialogue. This movie has artistic merit and is worth watching if gritty depressing, but sometimes beautiful films are your cup of tea. It is interesting to see what actors with no formal training came up with, and some of the picture shots are impressive. I found myself working hard to find things to like about the film, but the overall impression is one of poverty, bleakness and disconnection. There are a very few moments of hope, colour and love. The ending made me laugh. I felt hoodwinked - what? I just sat through That for This? Incredulous! But sometimes thats what life is like - a dull and depressing ride with no meaning.

Independent film set during the bleak wintertime in the Mississippi Delta. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and won Best Director and Best Cinematography Dramatic at the Sundance Film Festival. All three actors playing the main characters made their acting debut right here and only one of them has acted since. The film starts off slow with choppy editing and takes a while until all the pieces come together. Direction is stark, there's no background music or score at all. It's a struggle for these people trying to survive poverty and drugs and being a single mom in a world with very little hope for a better future. Nothing new in that tale. There's a true sense of tragic realism here which doesn't help the story so much. The characters never rise above and give us something truly interesting or hopeful. It's almost like watching a depressing documentary with no rainbow at the end. Rainbow not needed, of course. What sets this apart then, if anything? Location and the basic simpleness of it all. There's no wow, just life portrayed honestly. That's not enough, perhaps, for all viewers, but engaging enough for others. 7.4 / 10 stars --Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

First-time LA-based director Lance Hammer's powerful, naturalistic film seeks to capture what he sees as the prevailing sadness of the Mississippi Delta landscape through its concentrated portrait of a little black family torn by terrible grief and gradually struggling from despair to reconciliation and hope. Ballast begins with a shaky camera shot of a flock of birds flying away across a plain in the Mississippi Delta, then to violent events too fast to grasp completely. A white man, John (Johnny McPhail), comes to the door of a little house to ask Lawrence (Micheal J. Smith Sr.) what's wrong. He won't speak, goes outdoors and a shot rings out. He's shot himself. John calls 911 and Lawrence is rushed to the hospital. For a while this almost looks like an episode of "Cops." The hand-held camera throws the viewer in the heart of all this action with a palpable documentary-style intimacy. Things cool down a bit as the camera moves over to the house nearby on the same lot where a mother, Marlee (Tara Riggs), lives with her teenage son James (JimMyron Ross). Marlee works in a lousy job cleaning latrines. James is on break from school and pays visits to young drug dealers he owes money to. Rudderless and confused about his dead father, a recent suicide and Lawrence's twin, who never visited him, James turns to desperate and risky behavior that he tries to hide from his mother. The drug dealers pay a threatening visit to James's house. Back from the hospital Lawrence remains so paralyzed by grief over his brother's suicide perishables are going bad in his little convenience store and he can barely speak, let alone reopen the store and resume normal life. Marlee gets fired from her job and there's no money. James wanders the fields, his only friend perhaps the family dog, the half-wolf Juno. Slowly, the three let out their grievances and begin reconciliation and a solution that involves the property the twins' late father left them and an uneasy cooperation between Lawrence and Marlee. Hammer's film-making, which got him consideration at the Berlinale and two top prizes for directing and cinematography at Sundance in early 2008, involves a strong camera and meticulous natural sound (with no music), but above all the director's own commitment to humanistic integrity. His various models include Mike Leigh, Charles Burnett, and the Dardennes--Leigh for the attention to family conflicts, Burnett for truth about African-American life, the Dardennes for a method in which the camera literally dogs the footsteps of ordinary people in crisis. This isn't digital but 35 mm. Technicolor in widescreen, by Lol Crawley, edited by Hammer. Dolby Digital sound designed by Kent Sparling of George Lucas' Skywalker Sound and edited by Julia Shirar (who's worked with Sofia Coppola and Noah Baumbach) was designed by Sam Watson, a Mississippi native, all with close, committed involvement in the project. Essential to Hammer's approach was to use local people in the main roles and a screenplay whose dialogue was frequently rewritten by the actors who embellished their scenes with improvisation. Even when James' dialogue at some points is nearly inaudible, the sound crew kept that. Though this may be a dubious nod to authenticity, the film is so involving that it hardly leaves the viewer time to think. If this is the Dardennes, it is the Belgian brothers working in top form--save for the ending, which is no resolution or even a question mark, just an abrupt blackout. However, the whole second half of the film is a struggle toward resolution that gives a surprise sense of hope slowly emerging out of what middle-class viewers in particular might tend to see as an utterly hopeless situation. Seen as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival 2008. To be distributed by IFC Films in late August 2008.

"Ballast" is an independent film which many critics went "ballistic" with and was even nominated for several Independent Sprit Awards last year. Did it deserve it? No. Should it be ignored? No. "Ballast" stars Tarra Riggs as Marlee, an impoverished black mother living in rural Mississippi trying her best to make ends meat to raise her tweenage son James. James is a young drug addict who goes to extreme measures to support his drug habit. Example: James nonchalantly enters his Uncle Lawrence's home and holds him up at gunpoint to obtain money to purchase the drugs. Lawrence, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E. himself, depressive nature does not make him fight off the rebellious immaturity of James. Lawrence is profoundly grieving the suicide death of his twin brother Darrius, who was married to Marlee and is James' papa; even though Marlee & James despised Darrius because of his desertion of them both. Marlee eventually discovers James unrighteous ways and even loses her job. The desperate Marlee has no choice but to seek the assistance of neighbor Uncle Lawrence even though she has loathed him also because of his brother's actions. What happens next is a commending story of the power of connectivity of people going through harsh times and letting their unforgiving nature behind for the betterment of a child. Therefore, the central fixation is on sacrificing hang-ups in order to help a boy alter his self-destructive habits in order for him to have a promising & hopeful future. The performances of Michael Smith as Lawrence and the aforementioned Riggs as Marlee were authentically solid. Especially Smith's work, who spoke volumes with his non-verbal acting on the internal emotional pain of losing a loved one. JimMyron Ross as James was mediocre at best, but there were signs that with some more thespian training, the young Ross could have a successful acting future. Writer-Director Lance Hammer did nail the character development of the protagonists residing in poverty-stricken small town Mississippi, but I think Hammer screwed it up a bit on orchestrating too many stale & elongated scenes. Kudos does go out to the film's thematic & symbolist cinematography. "Ballast" is a mostly melancholy story which I do not think you will have a "ball" with, but it is a reliable moral narrative on the human nature of resiliency that deserves to be experienced. *** Average

'Ballast' is Lance Hammer's first feature film (he also directed the film short,'Issaquena'--unseen by yours truly),and is a quiet,powerful portrayal of three damaged souls & trying to pick up the pieces,heal and move on. The story opens as Lawrence (played by Michael J.Smith,Jr.)is living in a comatose state of shock,after his twin brother had committed suicide sometime earlier. His nephew,James (played by new comer Jim Myron Ross)is a 12 year-old youth that is just a breath away from mixing with the wrong crowd & is potentially embarking on a life of crime,and is not surprisingly angry with life in general. His embittered Mother,Marlee (played by Tarra Riggs)is divorced from Lawrence's brother & carries a chip on her shoulder the size of the Mississippi Delta itself (where it was filmed in the dead of Winter,to give the film it's bleak look). It seems that the two brothers once had dreams of making it big in radio,but ended up co owning a convenience store. There is bad blood between Lawrence & Marlee (she tells James to stay away from his Uncle,but sneaks away to see him--'tho not for always the most honorable purposes). It's up to these three to make amends for what has happened and try to find a way to move on from the past. Lance Hammer writes,directs from his own original screenplay,as well as edits this small,quiet story of desperation & redemption. I really admired the use of cinematographer,Lol Crawley's hand held camera work,which conveyed the sense of perspective. The near,non existent use of music also worked well for this film (no original music score---only a few snippets of music appear in the background,generally on television or radio). The film's slow pacing may tax the patients of some who can't deal with a film that isn't fast paced,with scenes only lasting no longer than ten seconds. This small film won praise at the 2008 Sundance festival. It's easy to see why. Seek this one out. Not rated by the MPAA,this film contains pervasive strong language,a bit of non graphic violence,and much smoking.

While the plaudits for truthfulness are well-deserved, I found myself yawning more than a few times during "Ballast." I really wanted to give this film a chance -- the characters had so much potential to tell us an engaging story. The real tragedy in this tale of near-tragic realism is that the pacing and atmospherics, which for some may bolster the sense of realism, only serve to deaden any spark of story these characters have to tell us. The performances are spot-on, and, with the exception of diction problems on the part of young James, they are technically flawless. But movie characters are not real characters, and when they move through events with the slow and seemingly random momentum of real people in the real world, they fail to engage our interest. While there is much to be said for the film-making -- the cinematography, sound and production design are wonderful -- I can't help but feel these talents were squandered.

I first became interested in Ballast when I heard about its setting: it's very rare to find a film set in the Mississippi Delta. It's also quite rare to find a serious drama with mostly black characters. I was afraid that this would either be a sappy melodrama or an attempt to make some "profound" point about how racism exists and is, like, bad and stuff. Thus I was quite pleased to find that this film manages to have a uniquely Southern setting without resorting to clichés or caricatures and that making some grand social statement is evidently the last thing on the mind of first time director Lance Hammer. Instead, we have a deliberately paced character study with a nicely handled mise en scene. The film opens with the attempted suicide of Lawrence, a shopkeeper distressed over the (extremely) recent death of his twin brother/partner/only friend. Lawrence's recovery is complicated by his brother's will which indicates that the recently deceased man's ex-wife and teenage son are entitled to his share of the store and part of the property the brothers had co-habitated. Things start off tense due to the boy's involvement with some disreputable older boys that he owes money and stay that way due to Lawrence's troubled partnership with the boy's mother. This is a quiet, contemplative film for the most part and it offers no easy resolutions. Instead, it manages to realistically capture some unique characters in a woefully ignored section of American society.