The Other Side

Roberto Minervini's documentary is as quintessentially American a text as one could hope for in today's divided union.

His fly on the wall approach never feels exploitative – in instances, it yields surprising empathy. In spite of his characters’ actions, Minervini miraculously captures traces of profound humanity.

If it were possible to splice the DNA of William Faulkner and John Cassavetes, the resulting progeny might produce a film like Roberto Minervini’s The Other Side, an immersive, almost harrowingly naturalistic plunge into the lives of marginal Louisianans obsessed with guns, drugs and belligerent resentments.

There is a compassion in this filmmaking that is markedly lacking in America’s attitude towards the people it pushes to its outer fringes.

Unlike Minervini’s previous outing, which gently unfolded through quiet, unstructured moments, the film feels far more scripted and staged, and, in effect, more shocking and exploitative.

In the end, the power of Minervini’s pseudo-fiction gives way to a much blander version of pseudo-reality.

It's all shocking, of course, but it also often looks staged and performed rather than merely observed.