Failed State (2023) dir. Christopher Jason Bell & Mitch Blummer
Bell and Blummer give a stronger condemnation of neo-liberal economic failure and the dearth of a social welfare system than the traditional journalistic documentary would have been able to.
2023 seems to be quite the year for Christopher Jason Bell. Earlier this year, his four hour archival record of the George W. Bush presidency, Miss Me Yet, aired on Means TV (the world’s first worker-owned streaming service), and his new film co-directed with cinematographer Mitch Blummer, Failed State, just premiered at the Torino Film Festival. Working on the cutting edge of doc-fiction hybrids, the incisively titled Failed State never makes any grand narrative geopolitical indictments or descends into journalistic op-ed type explanatory-ism. Instead, our failed state of regulated poverty, unaffordable housing, and corrupt wage-theft is glimpsed solely through the life of one man who lives particularly close to the mechanisms and symbols of failure, the non-professional actor and New York City delivery person Dale (Dale Smith) as he completes real deliveries for his day job.
Failed State follows Dale early on in the pandemic as he completes strange deliveries, navigates poverty, and makes new friends. From my understanding, the filmmakers supplement the real-life of Dale with fictionalized interactions created with a “cast of characters pulled from all of our experiences.” He is an intensely friendly and sociable man with a bushy (but not unkempt) beard and hides the stories (that he eagerly shares) that he holds near-and-dear. I couldn’t help but think of Keith, the zamboni driver at the ice rink where I grew up playing hockey, eating stadium food, and flirting with the figure skaters. Keith was like Dale in both personality and appearance, bushy beard and black greasy hair included, if not in economic status (though I can’t imagine zamboni drivers are swimming in disposable income either); he was a quiet, professional man who cared deeply about his job and possessed an endless supply of stories for nearly any topic—not unlike Dale, whose professionalism and effort to finish his deliveries surly impresses so much that the only way to make sense of it is through economic motivation.
Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.