Homecoming

Recalcitrantly shot and apparently improvised feature about a family that is very deeply affected by the great political and economic developments in America after 9/11. Jeff and his wife Mattie live in Newport, Oregon, a town on the coast. Both of them work to try and make ends meet, but they only just manage. Their son Chris is also a cause for concern, as he is unemployed and his girlfriend wants to dump him. He visits a therapist, but he more or less assaults him, and the sessions also reveal that Chris’ father is not really his father. Then there’s another son, Steve. Steve remains off-screen because he is serving in the army and has been sent to Iraq. This is another worry for Jeff and Mattie, and to top it all off, their worst fears become a reality: Steve comes back in a ‘transfer tube’, to be buried at home. Having lived and worked for more than 10 years outside the USA, Jost returned to record the effects of recent developments on the ordinary population. And like no other film maker, he investigates the ‘homefront’, the vulnerable underbelly of the superpower America.Jost evokes a melancholy and realistic picture of America. While clearly fiction, the film has a high degree of naturalism. Polished Hollywood beauty is nowhere to be found. Everything looks ugly. The people. The houses. The weather. Like life itself. (GjZ)