"One last trip down the rabbit hole before it's paved over," is probably a description of his new film by Robert Persons, its author, producer, director and director of photography. It has a strange name, "General Orders No. 9," but it's not a military film. It's a documentary, a look at part of Georgia, and it has a recurring theme, "Deer trail becomes Indian trail becomes county road," delivered in almost a monotone by narrator William Davidson. Further development includes state highways, federal highways and interstates, which are the ultimate enemy.
The film opens today and plays through Sunday as part of the Webster University film series. Did I like it? Not really, but it was a film that engaged part of me intellectually, and at 72 minutes, it certainly did not waste a day, or an evening.
Persons has a poetic rhythm to his writing; it's sparse but not unpleasant.
On several occasions, we see a wooded area that becomes a house. A town square grows around it. The county courthouse inhabits the square, a weather vane on top like a cherry on a sundae. Four streets circumnavigate it. What begins with simplicity ends with Atlanta, with highways inserted as if they were heart valves or plastic blood vessels. Their arrival means that life continues in the city, but it also means that the city is built for automobiles, not for people .
There are no people in Persons' film. There are some charming scenes of player piano rolls in action, with other mechanical instruments as company. But to a greater extent, we see decay and abandonment, the detritus left by storms, grim warnings of steam emanating from atomic power plants. The Apocalypse is coming and there will not be enough left to provide the long-promised inheritance to the meek.
General Orders No. 9 will play tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus as part of the university's film series
— Joe