Riotsville, USA (79)

better than adam curtis, sorry not sorry.

When you are trying to understand the present tense, it is usually wise to partake a historical stance. That’s exactly the case with Sierra Pettengill, who worked on this project for 5 years (2015 onwards) before anyone showed interest in the project. 2020 was probably a.. fitting year for an interest of such topics to emerge, and it certainly benefited Pettengill who - as she candidly states - was able to progress the story out of the active amnesia syrrounding it.

But what exactly are the elements that make Riotsville, USA as effective as it is in 2023? First off, we have a pretty out-there approach of Pettengill who strategically exposes this story as a public narrative. Her argument here could have easily be written off should this project been an under-the-radar experiment. That’s obviously not the case, as all of the material is taken from public broadcasting archives. The effect of watching casual white housewives being indoctrinated on the “war on crime” narrative on the shooting field does leave an eerie effect on the viewer when it abruptly cuts to a Black community conversation where they’re contemplating on the threat coming onto them.

The absurdist elements during the faux-riot planning that later on take a very real form in real-life protests can only attest to the politicization of absurdity, in general. You even have a journalist cracking a laugh here and there while those riots were enacted.

What really makes this work stand out though is the effective intermingling of the form itself. Pettengill manages to converge three diferent forms of documentary filmmaking in exciting ways. The expository style meets the observational, which in turn meets the poetic. This is pretty much stuff Adam Curtis has been doing for ages, yet some real analysis is visible here (compared to the sometimes dangerous assumptions Curtis makes) and - lo and behold - real analysis is what we are really missing.