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Hybrid
review by Elias Savada, 2 November 2002
Able to leap tall corn stalks in a
single bound, Hybrid had earned a bushel of recognition from
a host of film festivals (Slamdance, San Francisco, Atlanta,
Newport, et al), and has been welcomed in numerous cities.
Unfortunately for local arthouse filmgoers in my neck of the woods,
Washington, DC, has not been one of them. Yes, it's an eccentric
piece, starting out with ragged, scratchy silent footage overlaid
with the ruminations of director Monteith McCollum's grandfather,
Milford Beeghly, an Iowa farmer who believes his seeds of peace --
those which grow into a golden hybrid corn -- can save the earth and
its starving millions from the war and anarchy that generally
accompany such hunger.
Notwithstanding it's political
implications, the film's inventive, non-conventional, and often
animated styling (briefly using a shot-through-burlap approach I
last saw on a film from 1927) is an absorbing quiltwork of
black-and-white images edited together by Ariana Gerstein, an
experimental filmmaker and collage artist, with McCollum juxtaposing
stark, grainy time-lapsed, landscapes with his ancestors' voices on
the soundtrack. These voicings, some made years earlier, sound very
much like private radio broadcasts about the family and its
sometimes unusual relationships. In one instance, sandwiched between
a Japanese beetle struggling to right itself and a worm squirming
through the soil is heard (presumably from the director himself),
"Would you say he was closer to corn than his family?" Milford's
daughter quickly, yet ruefully answers the interviewer "Oh
definitely. That was his whole life."
McCollum's hypnotic imagery is
enlightened by his own score, an improvised blend of violin, viola,
squeeze box, zither, and percussion that heighten the intended dour,
melancholic air.
Of course in a film all about corn
there is bound to be some corny material, like a 1950s television
commercial promoting the high-yield, disease-resistant, trademarked
Beeghley's Best Hybrid seed, in which the bespectacled Wilford
happens to drop in (he was in the neighborhood) to promote his
product. To keep the action interesting, there's even some sex
tossed in! In discussing the mating habits of corn, we learn that
eating corn on the cob is the equivalent of eating fertilized corn
ovaries. Gives a new meaning to the concept of oral sex, eh? And get
this: Corn has a tendency to play with itself! What next, corn
orgies? (Yup.) This can get more confusing than 12th grade physics.
Which leads to more about the
interesting life of Wilford, his determination and sanity. His son
talks of dad hiding his hybrid attempts behind the family barn
(wherein the director shows two ears of corn rubbing up against each
other on the earthen floor) for fear of ridicule. Yet, through hail,
drought, the slow recovery from the Great Depression, and other
discouragements in the 1930s, the pioneer persisted and succeeded.
Two of Wilford's three children go
on camera extensively. That Wilford and his three brothers were
generally a laconic bunch, keeping their comments to a minimum,
exacerbated Wilford's emotional distancing from his wife. That a
daughter, still in therapy, didn't really get to know her
well-traveled, constantly-on-the-road, closed-lipped father until
well into her 40s.
The family's oddities are as
obvious as an old family photo of Wilford, as a child, dressed as a
girl (because his mother had wanted a daughter and apparently called
him Mildred), his long curly hair caressing his shoulders, covered
by a white lacy frock. They're curious about all the pointed
questions, in much the way Alan Berliner's father was in that
filmmaker's family history documentary Nobody's Business,
although the subjects here are much more gracious with their time.
As the 92-minute film starts its
second third, the filmmaker chronicles the early days of
hybridization. In this short, kinetic segment, using extensive
animation of corn kernels and other objects over still photographs,
we overhear Wilford's lecture on inbreeding. This soon evolves into
a brief history of the family business (which closed in 1974),
focusing on the weathered faces of the workers and the ghostly
images of past profitability.
Then there are those lovely little
promotional items that businesses offer their salesmen and best
customers. Milford's son showcases a push-down toothpick dispenser
-- Milford having always picked but never brushed -- that looks
strikingly like a sexual aid. Or Milford's expertise as a champion
hog-caller. And yes, there's also a corn striptease. Ah the things
you can find to entertain yourself in the American Midwest are
indeed varied.
A highly unusual hayride through
the cornfields of old, Hybrid showcases the odd and eccentric
relics of a past culled from a family scrapbook filled barnyard
cobwebs and the echoes of mislaid affections. Milford, shown
silently suffering in his sickbed as he approached his 100th
birthday, passed away in January 2001, just shy of his 103rd. Quite
a fighter. With Hybrid, grandson/director
McCollum insures that his granddad
will always be with us, clad in his overalls and a
corporate-embossed hat, at play in the cornfields of the lord.
That's just outside of Pierson, Iowa. |
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