Cinnamon

The film Cinnamon has been described as almost documentary. Everyday life is recorded with such apparent casualness that the drama looks to be coincidental. But it would do more justice to the special quality of the film to look at it the other way round. In that case, you would see the film as a documentary that has been manipulated with such control and subtlety that it evokes the appearance of fiction. The drama is then created less by accident. Documentary or fiction, the label is not very important, but the uncertainty indicates that this is a special film that does not fit easily into any particular category. Kevin Jerome Everson has made many short vignettes of life within the Afro-American community. He now applies the contemplative approach he has developed in this way - in which a short film was able to acquire the appeal of an essay - to a full-length film. The film provides an Impressionist image of an Afro-American family in which father John and daughter Erin are totally dedicated to drag-racing, racing home-built vehicles. The loving approach to their blue racing monster, as well tended as a thoroughbred racehorse, has been equally lovingly recorded by the film maker. The film is mainly built up of observations. Occasionally, Everson even seems to creep up on his subject in order to avoid disrupting the natural course of events. (GjZ)