I intended to watch only the first ten or fifteen minutes of this film, on a recommendation by a professor. I ended up watching the whole 2 hours 40 minutes, engrossed at every turn. I don't know why this film is so good; by all rationale, it probably ought to have turned out to be dull and pretentious. Instead, Sherman's March is an incredibly patient and passionate examination of oneself, the pain and frustration that come with mid-life depression, and the quasi-comic mystery surrounding Southern culture. I don't often find myself so enveloped in documentaries, particularly those that stop pursuing their apparent narrative ten minutes in and take on a totally new and divergent direction. But this film works. In filming his relationships with a number of different women over the course of a year, McElwee reveals himself to be a deeply frustrated individual, whose penchant for chasing life with a camera proves both constructive of an insightful film, as well as destructive to his own sense of balance and structure in his own life. The result is often funny, occasionally discomforting, and periodically profound. One sequence ends with McElwee's filmed conversation with a woman with whom he has tried to forge a romantic involvement out of an ancient friendship; the sharpness with which they speak to each other is jolting. McElwee manages to evoke an entire persona for himself - whether authentic or not - with scenes like these, at the same time drawing an insightful - if slightly overblown, though satirically so - comparison of himself to William Tecumseh Sherman and his devastating Civil War march through the South. This is a remarkable film for its willingness to examine the subtext of its maker's life.
Review of Sherman's March
