Review of Homeland Insecurity

Introduction

A film called Homeland Insecurity arrived through my letterbox the other day. The title looked interesting considering we live in a post 9/11 world. Wasn`t completely sure about the blurb on the artwork though. Homeland Insecurity contains two short films about the hometown you`re looking for and the hometown you`ve left behind. Er, ok.

The first film, about 15 minutes in length, is called Hub City and is a film about the strange weather in the skies above Lubbock, a town in Texas. This was the hometown of Buddy Holly and seemingly the hometown of filmmaker Bill Brown.

The second is really the main feature of the release called The Other Side and lasts 43 minutes. Bill Brown takes his camera on a 2000 mile trip along the US-Mexican border to investigate what has happened the US immigration policy since 9/11. He travels and gets contributions from the Samaritan Patrol, Humane Patrol, No More Deaths and Water Stations Project. All of these groups are volunteers who roam the border to make life easier for those looking to gain entry to the US. It`s not about suborning the US immigration policy though, it`s about valuing human life and trying to ensure that no one else dies in the attempt to reach another country.

Video

It may be deliberate but the picture`s not that great; blurry and out of focus in places, grainy and with print damage. It was only filmed in 2006 on 16mm so I`m guessing that Bill Brown was either using really old film stock or the picture design was deliberate. Either way, it should`ve been much better. A lot of the images are still shots of buildings with traffic passing in front of them or desert with little going on.

Audio

PCM soundtrack, which is fine, with filmmaker Bill Brown narrating the piece which is a mix of story and opinion but no subtitles.

Features

Kustom Kamera Kommando`s - a 2½ minute trailer for the 43rd Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2005, which consists of a bloke lovingly dusting off his camera.

Conclusion

I have no idea who Bill Brown is or what kind of filmmaker he is. I can only go by what has been presented to me, and it`s a bit of a mixed bag. The first film is very odd, but then it`s also 11 years old and I kind of imagine he was either in his last years at High School or just graduated. It`s full of self-importance and feels like a child trying to make a profound statement without really thinking about what he`s saying. It`s a bit naïve, but thankfully only 15 minutes long.

I`ll be honest, I thought that The Other Side was going to be the same and it didn`t start off that promisingly for me. I initially thought it was just part 2 of Hub City at first. It got much better though with some interesting stories told by Brown, with minimum contributions from others. It`s not so much a documentary as a travelogue as there aren`t any interviews on camera in the conventional sense. The entire film is just a series of locked off or panned shots with either Brown narrating or some of the other participants talking, the viewer never really seeing any of them.

The Other Side is a thought provoking documentary about the effect on immigration from Mexico by the events of 9/11. The US have closed the borders down tightly and many migrants have since died either through starvation or dehydration in trying to cross the desert region that is currently their best hope or have even in some cases been shot by the US Border Patrol (as documented in this film).

Not as good as it could have been, but not bad at all…