Our belated review, we saw this almost two weeks ago now.
If Steven McQueen’s “Hunger“ is one of the toughest films of the years to watch because of the physical atrocities people endure, than Lance Hammer’s “Ballast” might be one the emotionally toughest film of the year to sit through.
Much less lyrical than we expected (all those David Gordon Green references threw us), “Ballast” is an an arresting experience suffused with striking performances of disquietude, in-the-moment handheld visuals, clipped unsentimental editing and hauntingly raw and real emotionally bleak scenarios.
Visceral in a gut-wrenching manner, “Ballast” is gutsy enough to keep the viewer in the dark in the beginning until the core slowly comes into focus when its ready (but note this is no mystery, it’s just patient storytelling). Centering on a family we don’t know is connected initially, “Ballast,” starts with Lawrence (an amazing Michael J. Smith Sr. who delivers a heartwrenchingly quiet-sad performance) who attempts suicide when his brother is found dead from a purposeful pill overdose.
The other family is James (JimMyron Ross) and his single mother Marlee (Tarra Riggs) who works as a janitor to scrape out a poverty-stricken living in a small trailer house. Left to his devices as school is out for the summer, James courts danger by stealing Lawrence’s gun while he’s in recovering in the hospital, running with drug dealers and smoking crack seemingly more out of boredom and wanting to fit in with the older crowd than any real addiction.
Eventually it naturally (and nonchalantly) materializes that Lawrence is James’ uncle and his deceased twin was the boy’s father. He and Marlee have history and now that his brother and her husband are dead, most of it illustrates itself in her ugly fits of rage and his internalized somberness.
Twins share an unexplainable bond and the moment when Smith quietly says to Riggs “you will never understand my love for my brother,” is a disarming and it packs a heavy emotional wallop. Through his run-ins with his extended family, both fractious and sometimes tender, Lawrence must decide if life is worth living without his other half. The answer of course is never clear and sometimes just despondent sounding.
As bleak and heavy as “Ballast” is, the film is a series of small heartache blows rather than any one movie moment or a “reveal” telling us “this is where you’re supposed to be sad.”
A closely-tracking, jarring and handheld camera (which generally follows from behind the back of the head ala the Dardenne brothers) keep you very much in the moment. When these people walk we feel like we’re right behind them. This kinetic camera promotes a nervous, raw energy and the preoccupation of the gun still under Lawrence’s couch creates a long-running subcurrent of anxiety.
Clipped and fragmented in its own brand of austere poetry, “Ballast” forces you to infer key parts of the narrative and motivations which is always bold and refreshing. Incredibly moving in subtle, non-narrative forced manners (the director never once tells the audience how to feel), “Ballast” is deeply touching, distressing, depressing and very much electrifying alive and acutely aware. It’s no wonder the film scored the most nominations at the 2008 Gotham Awards.[A]