What what what?

It's hard not to compare Porterfield's "Hamilton" to Akerman's "D'est." In pacing, cinematography and intent, they share so many elements; the long uncomfortable take, a relentless pace, an absence of action, the desire to communicate a space through the visual nearly exclusively. Both are complex combinations of fiction and documentary, of an exploratory eye. Both films seek to make the viewer inhabit a cinematic space long enough, patiently enough, to grasp that space. Both films punctuate the long steady pace with moments of strange action. An afternoon in Grandma's flower garden (Hamilton), a night in a sparely populated Russian nightclub(D'est). This visual style in Hamilton gives rise to feelings of document.

"We developed this film in Baltimore because it is home..." - Porterfield

However, "Hamilton" is a story, a scripted fiction, where "D'est" was a cinematic study. Reading Porterfields statements and bio, you get a slight feeling that he has something to prove. Self-taught, dropout, particular in methods, and a bit pretentious in execution. This very conventionally shot homage to two ideas, that of Bresson and Thoreau, leaves me a little bit insulted at the end with it's untranslated poem. It diminishes what is a truly open container that invites the constant projection of the viewer to get through the story. There is so little dialog, you must see yourself as someone in the film. However, Porterfield's name dropping explanations are a distraction. If you don't know Thoreau, Bresson, Mekas, Rilke, or German, then there are things about "Hamilton" that fail because he has eschewed convention. There are other things that Porterfield could have done to enhance the story he told without exaggerating conflict, such as better attention to the mise-en-scene. In effect, he is married to his darling of "...Boston, because it is home." Yet, there are few times where home is truly effected by Hamilton. The opportunities for that abound, but are diminished by unconvincing acting (for example with the Grandmother in the garden, or the hugging scene at the end), and that is a convention that can only be effected by directorial choice. The long car ride is the most effective scene in this vien, if not the entire film, so the question has to be asked if it is just a lack of skill with dialog and body language on the part of the film maker.

Don't take me wrong. I liked the look and pace of Hamilton. I liked the concept and most of the execution. I liked the ambiguity of the ending. What I disliked was Porterfield's published insistence that somehow this film is rebellious, or pedantic in some way. He is better than just successful at compressing a window of a long hot weekend where two young people try to make sense of life and probably miss each other by inches in the end. He is clear in portraying his the banality of life. As long as no one has to speak, the acting is good. My problem with this film is more one of a director who seems like he has something to prove other than his ability to produce a film worth watching. Porterfield did indeed produce a film worth watching. I would rather he just left it at that, and left the philosophy and justification to Bresson, Thoreau, and Mekas who were, artists of a different order.