Review: 'October Country' excavates universal pathos


The town of Ilion in New York's Mohawk Valley is an average American community, and the Mosher family is an average, if downtrodden, American clan. Yet the documentary "October Country," which profiles the Moshers over the course of a year, from one Halloween to the next, manages to excavate enough universal pathos from the mundane to find something truly extraordinary in the ordinary.

Trapped in a seemingly eternal cycle of violence, poverty and despair, three generations of Moshers open up to the camera, through a haze of cigarette smoke, about their lives: Don, the Vietnam vet and retired cop; Dottie, his trusting but inevitably disappointed wife; Chris, their thieving foster son; Danael, their granddaughter, who loses custody of her own young daughter during the film; and others. The only one who still exhibits a spark of life is Desi, Don and Dottie's teenage granddaughter, and one can only hope she avoids some of the poor choices her forebears made.

This sort of film could only be possible with the access allowed by the fact that its co-director (along with Portlander Michael Palmieri) is Donal Mosher, whose photo essay of his family inspired the movie. Donal, the Moshers' son, remains invisible throughout "October Country," so we're left to wonder how he escaped from Ilion and what his relationship with his family is today. Still, it's a remarkable, unsentimental portrait that refuses to condescend or lecture to either its subjects or its audience.

(80 minutes, not rated, Fox Tower) Grade: B+

-- Marc Mohan