Putty Hill

Narrative Feature, Emerging Visions
D: Matthew Porterfield; with Cody Ray, Zoe Vance

A young guy dies of a heroin overdose and his dysfunctional family and friends try to absorb the loss. Sounds like a straightforward story of angst, but in the hands of Porterfield, it becomes something more. Ably using a mostly amateur cast in his native Baltimore, the director makes a character of the city and its various locales – a drug-laden skate park, a tattoo parlor, ramshackle homes, and a karaoke bar that serves host to a touching wake. Porterfield blurs the lines between documentary and fiction by allowing his cast to ad-lib much of the story – he had only a five-page script – as an unseen interviewer asks them about how their lives intersected with the dead man’s. Just as interesting is the way Porterfield pumps up the ambient sound – the tattoo artist’s ink gun screams, a television whines – as a means of reminding us that this is a film about this life we trudge through daily.

Thursday, March 18, 8:30 pm, Ritz 2

This article appears in March 19 • 2010.

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