Wow, this is one of the most interesting films I've seen in a good long while. It is, I suppose, a documentary, but only inasmuch as there's not another word for non-fiction film that I can think of. It doesn't follow the narrative/cinematic conventions of documentary film in any sense. It is probably better conceived as film performance art, or perhaps really good travel memoir in film instead of writing.
The musical performances are remarkable--not generally particularly polished or technically adroit, but there is some beautiful, intense music-making nonetheless. Jim White, the principal figure is not the most interesting musician here. Banjoists Lee Sexton and David Eugene Edwards are pretty impressive, and three sisters singing a traditional murder-ballad in a restaurant in some small town are high points. The Handsome Family are more impressive on CD than in the film, but the man's wierd low voice, and the image of the two of them singing perched on a shack over the water somewhere in North Florida is pretty arresting.
Ultimately the song "Poor Wayfaring Stranger," as sung by Edwards seems to sum up the movie--a meditation on the dark, creepy world of southern small towns and countryside so well described by Flannery O'Connor. Or perhaps the lyric "Every casts a shadow under the sun's golden fingers" is it. There may be light and beauty, but it is the darkness that captures our eyes here.
The movement from Sin to Church, from prisoners and bikers and Saturday night drinkers to pentacostal worshippers, and preachers is cliche, I suppose, but works nicely to give shape to this film. In the end I suppose this is as essentializing as "Deliverance," but as an act of self-representation it seems to have so much more depth, so much more power. Like "The Dancing Outlaw," this film challenges us to look and listen closely at something that is not simple to understand. To see and see past a century or more worth of stereotype.
Highly reccomended.