Erie

Lake Erie ranks fourth, size-wise, among the five great lakes in North America. To the north, it borders the Canadian province of Ontario, and to the south the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Its name is derived from the native tribe Erie. The film is made of a set of very long takes, and is focused on the life of the communities living around the lake. Through these scenes, the film actually reflects on the migrations of the African-American community. Exemplary moments are told through the gestures of people practising piano, breakdance, or fencing. The burning candle, watched by a little girl, epitomizes the flowing of time, while the scenes work like ‘tableaux vivants’ embodying the birth of a community. This way, the flowing of water is paralleled, by way of Parmenides’ thought, to the flowing of time and of existence. Besides, these find their most consistent and mysterious formal expression in the impassive quality of the long takes. The history of the United States is thus represented both as a novel of initiation to understanding and as archaeology of a social class firmly positioned between the folds of time and territory. Erie is the film by Everson that most radically challenges our understanding of how weather, climate and landscape affect people’s lives. But, as always, there are different layers of reality at work. The film also deals with the crisis that struck the African-American working class when big factories such as General Motors stopped hiring people back in the early eighties. People had to find different jobs, mostly in private clinics and hospitals, but their lives did not improve. They got worse. So the changes and challenges brought about by the environment in people’s lives are mirrored in the profound transformations of economy and vice versa. Erieis one of the most affecting and compelling portraits of life in the United States made in the past few years.

Giona A. Nazzaro