General Orders No. 9

I’m curious if others have seen Robert Parson’s 2011 film General Orders No. 9, which I had a chance to see recently on Netflix. From the poster and title you would not know what it was about without reading the description.

Parson’s film is an experimental documentary that combines poetry and images of Georgia to express the director’s impressions of industrialization and environmental injustice.  There is no narrative but a sense of direction and theme is established by Parson’s combination of sound and image. He is highly skeptical of cities, interstate highways, and all things modern (perhaps with the exception of the camera itself).  As I tell my students, narrative film wants us to feel something, documentary to think something, and experimental film to perceive something. And perception, or reorienting of perception, is clearly Parson’s goal. I was definitely put in mind of the kind of ecocinema experience Scott MacDonald and Paula Willoquet-Maricondi have described in their work in the field.  It is an ambitious first film and well worth viewing to provoke further conversation.  Here’s a link to a thoughtful review by Studio 360’s David Krasnow. I’ll be interested at the upcoming ASLE conference in June to hear if anyone is thinking or writing about the film.