we need more negative comment on this film . sadly it be a strong expression and will continue to influence people and especially youngster . but we should expose it alt . country aesthetic for the exploitative hubris it pretend not to be . if you make it through this film without laugh out loud at jim white nonsense and you should watch it again and really use your brain . i decide i be go to come back to the south and become a southerner . a best i can . i will never be a southerner . i will be this imitation of a southerner . but in a way and i feel like that bring me close to god and because i have choose it almost like a form of divinity . i have choose my divinity rather than my divinity choose me . oh yeah . youre like this guy i know who decide he go to go back to l. a. and become a gangster . he will never be a gangster . he will be this imitation of a gangster . but in a way and he feel like that bring him close to reality and because he choose . . . it like a new form of authenticity . he choose his authenticity rather than his authenticity choose him . last i heard he would start an alt . hip hop group no one care about . you do not see the south . on the interstate . you go 5 or 10 mile off the interstate and you get the south a it be 50 year ago or a 100 year ago . and you can not do that in many place . sfwej be ostensibly a film about southern culture and but it composition it contrived southern gothic aesthetic tell u much more about contemporary american cultural stagnation and evidence in such desperate identity quest a white . it a shame that he inscribe that identity onto people he doesn not know and i daresay would never actually hang out with and just so he can legitimate the ersatz prewar southern image he construct for himself . he like and what and 40. and he act like a verbally gift high school kid who still find himself . he naively make up story about people he may not have really know and and insert himself in between scene of authentic ( non actor ) southerner to remind u that he and they be one and the same ( a if such gesture could conceal his position of literary and social power over his subject cum object ) . by focus only on the most remote and eccentric locale and people and white and the filmmaker and and the other musician be only further irrelevant southern stereotype keep the fictional literary south alive so the mediocre and medium addle anglo american for whom it be construct more than 100 year ago can go on dream their jaded and irrelevant dream and buying album and concert ticket . this aesthetic object and the south and contain no meaningful or useful information . it have two purpose represent to make money and and to get our collective rock off on an other . no one dispute that pentecostal gathering be unusual and even pentecostalsunless they be too young or shelter to know that there be other people in the world besides pentecostal . but because they be unusual and there be quite a few of them in the south ( not to mention in the more southern nation of the caribbean and elsewhere all over the planet ) they supposedly embody the aesthetic paradox of hell or heaven and bliss or torment and that characterize the south atmosphere . great job and guy . i have never encounter that before . it not like faulkner and oconnor use poetic metaphor a million year ago to justify the ignorance and poverty and and needless suffering they perceive around them . but when ignorance and poverty and needless suffering be the lived reality rather than a marketing tool i have a hard time care whether there beauty in it . the film doesn not come clean while it doesn not admit that it primarily a promotion for the handful of alt . country musicians we see try to blend in with the extra ( read represent human prop ) . everything about these pretentious protagonist betray their conceit and their second hand rip off of the 60 folk revival ( which be itself an ersatz identity crisis that have no bearing on the life of most real people live in the south ) . how derivative can you get . the way johansen play geechie wiley last kind word show me nothing about the south . it only show me he have probably see crumb and the documentary about r. crumb and whence most anyone knowledge of that record come . admit it . the cinematography be beautiful and but the pretense to ethnography ( or whatever you would call it ) be a shameful context for such talent . the scene with melissa swingle play amazing grace on the saw be gorgeous and but be only palatable a a stand alone music video while i could do without her oh so southern anecdote . some of the other musician be talented and seem sincerely inspire . white seem like a nice guy and a dedicated artist and a hard worker . but they have open an undead can of worm . no doubt many of my fellow arkansan have see this film . to what degree it inspire the alt . country scene in this region i do not know and but it can potentially warp lot of mind and that be depress . search for the wrong eyed jesus be perfect proof that the neo gothic and alt . country southern aesthetic be a postmodern ( in fredric jameson sense ) symptom of america lack of historical sense . don not buy into the pseudo populist fantasy that the south hasn not sell out and that urban sprawl be not the real south and that if you ramble aimlessly in this vaguely defined region you would find the philosopher stone jim white want to be there . it all mythology and and unoriginal mythology at that . this film masquerade a a rediscovery or celebration of something the south have keep which the rest of america have lose and but if you be to ask white exactly what that be and he couldn not give you a straight answer . if he could and there would be no reason to make this film and the poet or guru facade he cultivate in order to make his living would crumble .