On the fecund soil of American cinema, arty, unpretentious hidden gems are scattered in dribs and drabs, and SONGCATCHER is such a doozy, emanates an ethereal aura thanks to the gentle female touch from director/writer Maggie Greenwald and a crackerjack ensemble cast.
Year 1907, musicologist Lily Penleric (McTeer) visits her younger sister Eleanor (Adams) in the Appalachian mountains after again being snubbed for a promotion by the sexist academe of the university where she teaches. Eleanor runs a a rural school for the mountain people with Harriet Tolliver (Kerr), whom later Lily discovers is Eleanor’s lover.
To her utter delight, Lily is entranced to find out the local people has preserved a ream of traditional ballads since they settled down over two centuries ago, and takes in hand to record and transcribe those songs in hope of publishing a book to show the rich culture of the people, grossly being disparaged by the outside world as uncouth, barbaric, God-fearing and inbred.
The rub is, those epithets are not entirely untrue, Greenwald is not going to white-wash or embellish the hillbillies’ defects, but more judiciously, she sends her message that we shouldn’t tar people with the same brush, however homogeneous they are on the surface; with the same attitude, the persona non grate Earl Giddens (Kelly) is corrupted by the outside world and whose monomania is to lowball the dwellers for their lands, at the behest of an acquisitive coal company.
Even our heroine Lily isn’t portrayed as a selfless urbanite to pass wisdom, introduce civilities to the jerkwater folks. Lily holds the same bias towards the locals and appears only too eager to exploit her discovery that will greatly benefit her stalling career, her initially condescending manner to the orphan girl Deladis (a songbird Rossum in her screen debut) can also raise a few eyebrows, but the difference is that Lily can learn, can empathize, and finally respect a different kind of lifestyle that is so different from hers, and treat those people as equals. It certainly doesn’t hurt by cottoning to a two-time widower Tom Bledsoe (Quinn), who is soured by his experience outside the mountains but nevertheless, endowed with a good nature and great tolerance that also illumines Lily (her homophobia also subsides over time).
Narratively, one might begrudge Greenwald of opting for the most obvious taboo to ignite the dramatic uproar (why Eleanor and Harriet must expose their sapphic passion al fresco, knowing all too well the risk?), but she also manifests considerable tact in drawing the line, nothing is over-heated, a merit often materializes more from female filmmakers.
McTeer, the unusually towering leading lady, with her usually beady eyes, carves out Lily’s fish-out-of-water experience with munificent brio and mettle, countervailed by Quinn’s rough-around-the-edge sensitivity and dreamy gaze, their romance is a corny set piece but they hone their chemistry up to the right temperature, and Pat Carroll is exemplary of a hale and hearty grandmother, hurling her thoughts and warbling ditties like nobody’s business.
However to Yours Truly’s lights, it is Adams who outshines everyone else with Eleanor’s under-appreciated sizzling of passion, disillusion and resolution, her dainty, tentative gesture of soliciting affirmation from Lily of her unorthodox sexuality, her final exchange with Lily shows how gutsy a woman she has become (Lily chooses to go away but not her), against all the setbacks, Eleanor’s quiet resilience becomes the movie’s own undimmed strength.
When everything is said and done, what should put SONGCATCHER on any cinephile’s must-see list is a panoply of Appalachian folk scenes marshaled by Greenwald and her team, which is recorded with its unalloyed primitiveness and plainness, often threnodies with lilting rhythm and twanging accent, so attuned with the soul-soothing mountainous vista, heritage is here to stay, colliery just get stuffed.
referential entries: John Huston’s THE DEAD (1987, 8.1/10); Julie Dash’s DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991, 7.1/10).
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