asiel norton Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Redland is an art film in the most literal and complimentary sense. Every frame of it looks like an Impressionist painting or an exquisite photograph, and the dialogue is overheard in snippets, the way you half-hear conversations when you're drifting to sleep. The story is non-linear and dreamlike. The film's substance, its actual content, is good, but its style is nothing short of astonishing.

The setting is a rural, isolated mountain home during the Great Depression. These are not the Waltons, though. The unnamed family is dirt-poor, living in a ramshackle house and barely staying ahead of starvation. They subsist on the few chickens and other animals kept on their property. You know the old cliché about how we were poor but we didn't know it, because we were happy? Not these people. These people are poor and miserable.

Worse, the teenage daughter, Mary-Ann (Lucy Adden), has been having a sexual affair with Charlie Mills (Toben Seymour), a neighbor boy her age ("neighbor" means he lives a few miles away), and has been trying desperately to keep it hidden from her father (Mark Aaron) and mother (Bernadette Murray). Father suspects something is wrong with his daughter and asks her brothers -- older Job (Sean Thomas) and younger Paul (Kathan Fors) -- if they've noticed any visitors lurking around, but they say they haven't.

When the family's plight becomes truly life-threatening, with Mother on the brink of death from malnutrition, Father and Job set off on a dangerous trek across the river in search of wild game. Charlie Mills is invited to accompany them, though Father has already grown suspicious of him. (When you live in desolate isolation, the list of possible secret boyfriends for your daughter is short.)

Next month Cinematical will once again invade the CineVegas Film Festival (check out our post on the fest's premiere slate), and we thought it'd be nice to give these smaller films a plug before their big dance so that you're aware they're coming. That said, we've just received this exclusive image for the film Redland, which will be one of nine world premieres landing in Vegas this year. Click image below to enlarge.



Written and directed by first-timer Asiel Norton, word on the street tells us Redland is a beautifully shot film that calls to mind the work of Terrence Malick. Set in rural America during the Great Depression, the film tells of an isolated family who must deal with their daughter's secret affair. You can check out more of Redland on its official website (also watch a trailer below), and find out all you need to know about CineVegas right over here.