Trailer Town

A film in which there is no point in making a distinction between documentary and fiction. The location (a real trailer park on the edge of Hollywood), the protagonists (dropout, alcoholic and perverted actors) and the action itself (a series of more or less coherent fragments) provide a convincing feeling of authenticity. The way in which the actions are portrayed is very similar to feature film staging and editing. Let’s just say the characters play their own lives, in their own camp, with their own dramas as narrative material. The film provides a bitter picture of the bottom social strata in present-day American society. The thin polyester wall is all that divides the protagonists from a life on the street as homeless. The trailer park inhabitants do not have to keep up social appearances and in occasionally shocking and bitter litanies they freely describe their intoxicated thoughts, about sex in particular. Yet their attempts to raise this coarse language into something resembling stand-up comedy acts are appealing and to a certain extent humorous. Towards the end, this freakish and very original film provides a beautiful parody of the inevitable denouement of every genre film when Bill, one of the protagonists, defends himself from the roof of his trailer with a rifle against the threat of eviction. Playacting or real: things are looking serious for the underbelly of America.. (GjZ)