In an invisible territory at the margins of society, at the border between anarchy and illegality, lives a wounded community that is trying to respond to a threat: of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love, ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world, floundering young women and future mothers, and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, the door opens to the abyss of today's America.
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Reviews
Truly Dreadful Film
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Nauseating. Maybe your reason to watch this movie is hillbilly lifestyles are interesting to watch. But to stomach the pretentious European director's style is a task. If you want to celebrate obese junkies engaging in real sex, pregnant strippers dancing after shooting dope, and racist gun nuts practicing maneuvers, it might be a diversion. Yet if you seek more than icky entertainment, there ain't no insights here. It's gutter anthropology/pornography which belches a sloppy, unclean carnival on screen as a dare to the viewer: Can you take it? Can you see beyond all the brain damage and gross sex and discharge, and still believe there's hope or meaning. The director is too busy fellating his own ideas, and allowing seductive camera-work to make squalor aesthetic.The movie's goal is to shock, then smear the viewer's faces with bullshit platitudes. Watch "The Wild & Wonderful Whites of West Virginia" instead.
I'll give the producers of this documentary credit for selecting a topic that is rarely disclosed this bleakly and darkly. If their goal was to shock viewers about rampant self-destructive and militaristic, macho, aggressive behavior, they achieved that in spades. This is definitely not a movie for children. I don't know what the title "The Other Side" means. It felt dark, oppressive, hopeless, and depressing. Well made, but a definite downer. You've been warned.
IMDb has erroneously labeled this film as "PG", instead of the "X" it deserves, in today's US film environment. If this film is ever shown to children, there will be hell to pay. The film is indeed the quintessence of "disturbia". I was "raised" across the river in the West Monroe's twin city, Monroe, but have spent most of my life away from Ouachita Parish. I now live in West Monroe, after a long absence. While I knew this culture(s) is present here, I was not aware of the severity and the hopelessness that is served with it. If you live here, you will know there are some places, some neighborhoods, some parts of town you just don't visit, especially at night, as in Memphis, or most other cities. If you're not familiar with Louisiana and especially West Monroe, this film will cause you to take the area off of your "places you must visit" list. A little contrast would have been nice, especially considering the OTHER side of the other side are the majority of folks who live here.
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