Anytown USA (2005) is a low-budget, gripping documentary covering the 2003 mayoral race in Bogota, New Jersey (pop 8,000) from initial campaigns to the November election. Shot on digital video, the camera style actually changes over the course of the film’s compact 93 minutes. We begin with more static and establishing shots as we are introduced to the motley cast of characters in their milieu through interviews and brief scenic tableaus. Later, as the tension and suspense (“Who will win the campaign?”) build, the overall aesthetic becomes more that of cinema verité with handheld tracking shots (e.g. following the candidates as they make their last-ditch canvassing efforts) building to a climax.

The second feature from director Kristian Fraga, Anytown USA finds in the local political divides, dirty campaign techniques, and colorful personalities a microcosm for the country’s often bitterly divided two-party system. There is the incumbent Republican mayor, Steve Lonegan, a slightly heavyset and very boorish suit who is legally blind and who seems allergic to his lower-middle class constituency. Then there is the Democratic candidate, Fred Pesce, a very heavyset and rather world-weary man who comes out of retirement to challenge the mayor who, if early footage of town hall meetings is accurate, is loathed by many for his supercilious attitude and ineffectual governing.

Then there is the late-in-the-game write-in candidate, David Musikant, a local hero from his days on the high school football team. (Football is taken very seriously in the town, and indeed becomes a secondary story in the course of the film. Just as Mayor Lonegan is threatening to cut funding for the sports program and to redistrict the Bogota High School entirely, the school’s football team begins to climb out of their previous doldrums toward state championships). Musikant, like the incumbent candidate, is also legally blind, making for one of those national oddity stories that the outside media wishes to play up, and which Lonegan refuses to court. Musikant runs on the independent ticket, hiring Doug Friedline, the man who helped wrestler and independent candidate Jesse Ventura win his election. Formerly unemployed, without any political experience, but possessed of great charm and a desire to bring truth and openness to the system, Musikant represents a truly independent spirit in the race.

Anytown USA played in several film festivals (winning awards in the documentary category), but has not seen the inside of many theaters, even in the usual suspect major cities. To watch it, you will probably like me be viewing the DVD released by Film Movement (details below), which includes a commentary track (not sampled), some deleted scenes, and two brief but telling interviews with the director and the composer, Robert Miller. (A short film, Clown Car by David Garrett accompanies the DVD feature, but was too lame to stomach, even at 7 minutes.)

The production materials on the DVD and website present the film partly as a comedy, or as “hilarious” in any event. There is admittedly something very Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show (two films by Christopher Guest) about the documentary, but those were fake documentaries about many self-absorbed people that as films still managed not to be condescending in tone. Or, come to think of it, that is false: we (or at least I) do indeed laugh at many of those fake doc’s characters. To suggest that Anytown USA is comic presupposes a smugness on the part of the viewer (and potentially filmmakers). I feel the comical angle is unnecessary as an advertisement, and somewhat misleading. For me, the film is more fascinating as a portrait of small-town politics and people and their convergences and divergences with the national debate and character. Inevitably, this being a campaign whose outcome no one can safely predict, the film is also gripping as a horserace. Be prepared not only for some twists, but rather Pathos-tinged outcomes as well.

3.8 out of 5 stars


Find the DVD:
http://www.sirkproductions.com/anytownusa/site/index_New.html

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD