This is as sad a film as I have seen in many years, and the fact that it is a documentary about a scarred, dysfunctional, angry and apathetic family makes "October Country" that much sadder. Directed and filmed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, it covers a year–from Halloween to Halloween–with Mosher's own family.
They live in Mohawk Valley, N.Y., an upstate community that has a Remington plant and little else.
Don Mosher served with American forces in Vietnam and several Middle Eastern wars, came home, worked at Remington for a few weeks until, as he says, he realized a trained ape could do his job as a bolt maker. Then he joined the Mohawk Valley police department. He drank. He beat his wife. He basically ignored his children, ended a relationship with his sister because she was a Wiccan. He never spoke about his days at war, but he could not attend July 4 ceremonies because the fireworks spooked him. He cannot say "I love you" to his children.
He knows something is wrong but. . . .
"We wouldn't know normal if it fell on us," he says.
His wife, Dottie, married too young, bore children too young, may have welcomed the beatings because they meant Don.
And she watched her daughters, Donna and Danael, follow the same cycle, marrying too young, having children too young, accepting beatings as part of life. She tried to talk to them, but like so many children everywhere, no one listened. The cycle continued through a son who has spent his life in and out of jail, two daughters who went from bad relationships to worse ones.
"If he doesn't smack her around," says Danael, reflecting on the men in her life, "he'll make her wish he did smack her around."
Desiree, Danael's pre-teen daughter, already sees what life has in store for her; she says she's smarter than her mother and her aunt, and says she will not follow in their footsteps. Knowing where the footsteps lead may be the best thing she has going for her.
Donal, brother to Donna, Danael and Chris, broke away from the family cycle and left home, possibly with greater ease because he is gay. He became a photographer and a writer, and met Palmieri in San Francisco, where they began working together. Donal said the family had the final edit; if anything displeased them, he would remove it. The result is an eerie film, shot in shadows and dark places, focused on odd things and minutiae of this fearful and scary family. Knowing that all the principals saw the footage and accepted it makes the whole thing more frightening. And enlightening.
"October Country" opens today and runs through June 10 at 7:30 p.m. daily in the Winifred Moore Auditorium, 470 East Lockwood Ave., on the Webster University campus.
–Joe