Title: Darwin: No Services Ahead
Director: Nick Brandestini
What would possess a person to stay and live in (or move to) a small, dusty town in the scorching Death Valley region of California, with a population of 35? That question is at the heart of Nick Brandestini’s “Darwin: No Services Ahead,” about a same-named, dried-up burgh at the end of a weathered road on the outskirts on a nearby mountain range where the government tests top-secret weapons. A unique and in some respects staggering work, “Darwin” is an involving portrait of people propelled from society by various tragic turns, and yet also curiously bound together by their estrangement.
When, in the spring of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama was captured on audiotape making comments about small towns whose jobs had dried up and vanished, and were thus characterized by a populace with antipathy toward outsiders or those different than them, and clinging to guns and religion, he was in theory speaking about rural Rust Belt voters, but there are certainly significant overlaps with some of the denizens of Darwin. The remarkable thing about Brandestini’s humanizing movie, though — which also recalls David Lynch’s web-produced “Interview Project,” co-directed by his son Austin — is that it doesn’t sit in superior judgment of them, even as it slowly reveals some of their cracked and warped thinking.
Monty Brannigan, a salty ex-miner who’s lived in the town for almost 60 years and is old enough to remember its wild(er) roots (after several openings and closings, the mine shuttered for good in 1977), lives in as much of an unexamined cocoon as he can with his second wife, Nancy, estranged from his two adult children. Hank and Connie Jones, a couple with seven previous marriages between them, give occasional town tours, and take care of Connie’s transsexual “son,” Ryal, and his partner, who are contemplating a move. Susan Pimentel holds the town’s one real job, as postmaster. (Michael Laemmle, meanwhile, the grand-nephew of Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle, oversees the 55,000-gallon water tank and single-pipe, gravity-fed waterline that descends from the mountains and serves as Darwin’s literal lifeline.) These and other interesting characters serve as a reminder that certain pockets of America are not for the hearty and hale, but for people — consciously or not — looking to avoid or run away from something.
Brandestini doesn’t load up his movie with fancy directorial gimmickry, or even prod his interview subjects with a seemingly specific agenda, instead leaning on an ethereal Southwestern-inflected score from composer Michael Brook for mood and just letting them talk. The skillfully edited result is fairly remarkable. A history of the town emerges first; its namesake was Dr. Erasmus Darwin French, a U.S. Army deserter who headed west during the Gold Rush and spent years (unsuccessfully) mining in the area. When silver was discovered nearby in 1874, the town briefly boomed, achieving its peak population of 3,500 in 1877. Then, in a roundabout way, colorful unseen supporting characters are illuminated through survivor’s memories. One Darwin dweller who passed in 2003, Greville Healey, lived in a hollowed-out metal water tank, having been “banned” from living in a home (trailer) after burning two of them down while falling asleep with lit cigarettes.
Finally, of course, the characters themselves come into crisper focus — with edifying details and sometimes shocking stories about their pasts, and ruminations (spoken and sometimes editorially implied) on what’s drawn them to and/or kept them in Darwin. There are few explicitly religious zealots in the mix (fistfights or the threat thereof seem more likely to broker peace than the blessed holy scripture), but more than a handful of Darwin residents confess a belief in apocalyptic, doomsday scenarios. To that end, one gentleman leaves a variety of loaded handguns, rifles and shotguns scattered around his home; another, for reasons unclear, has buried his guns outside of his trailer, in the desert. It’s fascinating and more than a little moving to contemplate the histories and dilemmas of all these people. They are by degrees damaged souls, yes, but in their basic needs not so different from you or I.
Now playing at the IFC Center in New York City, “Darwin” opens this week in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Sunset 5. For more information on the movie, visit www.DarwinDoc.com.
Technical: B
Story: A-
Overall: A-
Written by: Brent Simon
