© Portmanteau Pictures
Cass Cumerford in Flathead (2024)
Cass Cumerford in Flathead (2024)
Flathead
(IndiePix DVD)
With Flathead (2024), Australian director Jaydon Martin intentionally blurred the lines between documentary and fiction, staging the return of Cass, a 70something city dweller, to the small town he left behind half a century earlier.
Filmed in black and white (leaves spaces for the viewer to color), Martin tells the story visually, with musical cues and sparse dialogue. We meet Cass at the butcher shop where he works and the church social where he dances, and at home where he microwaves his dinner in a cramped flat. In the backdrop is a version of “Peace in the Valley,” a vision of a harmonious future after a life of trial.
With a premonition of spiritual solace, Cass sets forth across a barren outback reminiscent of the country of In Cold Blood, revealing pieces of himself in conversation with friendly strangers. We learn that along with his girlfriend, he fell into heroin addiction as a young man. “We knew it was stupid, but it felt so good. We had no other hobbies.” Like a character from a Stooges song, he was bored with nothing to do. He takes a moment to reflect on the romance of smalltime drug dealing, before cartels took charge and laced everything with fentanyl.
Flathead becomes a laconic documentary of backcountry Australian life with its cheap motels, lunch counters, bowling alleys and abandoned homesteads. Cass might be searching for something that no longer exists, but the trip is worth it. (David Luhrssen)
