I had read about this film in various magazines before and after its screening at Sundance. People seemed to have enjoyed it, and the thing that was being said over and over again was that its cinematography was amazing. And indeed, it is a unique piece of cinema that is offered in Jess + Moss - I must say that I really liked the title even before watching it-. And the title also says it all about the film and the story.
Jess (Sarah Hagan) is an tall and slim young girl who just got out of high school and who seems kind of lost in her life - she lives with an absent father and was abandoned by her mother - . We are in Kentucky, in the tobacco fields. It's summertime. Her cousin, Moss (Austin Vickers), a young boy who's about 12 years old, spends the holidays with her. Together, they wonder about life, listening to old records, talking about whatever comes to their mind, exploring the fields, the deserted houses, playing and riding their bikes. But what they don't openly say is that they're haunted by some family events that have changed them forever and also left them in the middle of nowhere.
There is not much happening in this film. No events, no climax, no suspense. It is simply the story of a summertime in the South of the States. The story of two cousins, a boy and a girl, the latter being much older. A story in which you can smell the tobacco plantations, feel the wind in the characters hair, enjoy the fun of a trampoline and a bike, breath the warm air of a dying day in a late summer afternoon. This tale of childhood, of holidays spent with family during which you easily get bored but don't care, is touching and peaceful, melancholic and nostalgic, but so beautifully calm.
And just to let you know: it's Clay Jeter's first feature (!). The colors and the visuals he gives us are simply magical. The loss of innocence and the hesitation between entering adulthood or staying in childhood are so well treated - Jess is 18 and wants to get out of Kentucky. She has a suitcase ready, she puts make-up on and steals her father's cigarettes but still, she enjoys spending her days with a 12 year-old boy.
And if the camera follows the protagonists, it also observes and makes alive the entire nature around them, the grass, the water, the trees. Of course, some could fear that the film would turn into a photographs album, but it doesn't. The result is a fresh, sensitive, emotional and colorful film.
Clay Jeter, I can not wait to see what you'll do next.
FYI: the film also screened in the GENERATION selection at Berlin, in February 2011.
MJ.
