One Potato Review

Another in the series of meticulous portraits of small town American life from Bonnie and Arthur Geisert: they’re believers. The handicap here is the heat (in place of Mountain Town‘s snow which the residents are terminally digging themselves out of) but it’s also, in many ways, a blessing, as the community makes a point of lingering in the air conditioned shelter of the corner grocery, and gathers together in the evenings for dancing, basketball, even a little smooching where no one can see. There’s blight around the edges here – shacks blowing down in sand storms, an old school bus mouldering on the outskirts – still each of these towns is so dependent on the seasons that renewal seems always right around the corner. Incurably optimistic.