A Disappointing Continuation

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I feel sorry for the other reviewer who seemed to take some personal offense at this out-of-the-box thinking piece of art work.This isn't even a documentary, it is something else.Where do you live? Where will you live? Where will WE live? Someday all of this will be something else, and we allowed it to happen. The fault is ours and no other. When will we stop?I don't have answers, only admiration.Oh and the music choices are almost all top-notch. This comes from the heart, not the mouth.One day more films like this will be accepted and we will all rejoice.

The first third of this film is so profoundly lyrical and soars so completely clear of the expectations on might have of any established genre, that you will smell the scent of magnolias on the breeze and hear the mockingbirds chattering to each other from across the hazy cotton fields. As poetry, the beginning of this film is absolutely matchless. The "sound" of the film is particularly important. If you listen closely, there is a distinct "drone" effect created by the sound of voices or what occasionally sounds like rich buzz a harmonium throughout the film. As a matter of fact this low "drone" seems to shift between the notes of C and D, at critical points during the film's progression. The voice of the narrator hovers above this grounding element in a way that taps into some deep, almost primal, set of aural codes. It reminds me very much of the music of Peadar Ó Riada, whose work is characterized by interplay between melodies and what in Irish is called the airlár -- literally the "floor" or grounding element. The film's strength as poetry is, for the most part, matched by an equally lyrical explorations of the Georgia landscape and reflections on decaying interior spaces. Unfortunately, the General Orders No. 9 takes a disappointing downturn, and while there are moments of brilliance throughout this film, the second half moves into territory which some of us, might find a bit off- putting. In short, the filmmaker does two things, which serve to at least partially undermine an extremely strong start: 1) The film creates a simplistic and binary opposition between the city and the country which are built on very weak foundations. The director ties city life to disorientation and disconnection. For him, the city has "no sense of place," no enduring character, and ultimately no real meaning. The way the director presents this argument is so extreme and absolutist that he misses the opportunity to explore the more subtle truths associated of the negative impact urbanization. He seems to be attempting to reach back to gasp a natural wholeness, a sense of harmonious order, which many would argue never really existed in the first place. 2) The same is true of his conception of the South. This film is deeply nostalgic and it sometimes comes close to constructing an image of the Old South that is so idyllic that it ignores the immense weight of human suffering that held the old, rural south in place. In many ways, cities have been a lifeline for the countless victims of southern neo- feudalism. For many African-Americans who left the South at the beginning of the twentieth century, the scenes of the southern country- side that the director conjures up in this film would be bittersweet reminders of southern beauty mixed with direct experience of southern oppression.

I'm good with long movies, with slow-moving pictures, with films that don't offer obvious filmmaker/viewer interfaces. Give me Tarkovsky, bring on Antonioni, please release the Cremaster Cycle! General Orders No. 9 has to be the most painfully slow, ultimately meaningless film I am aware of. It took six or seven tries to watch end to end.How the filmmaker imagined he might engage an audience with glacially slow, albeit lovely, images set to distant distorted Larghissimo echoey harpsichord music... What tranquilizer produces such a langorous, pretentious, catatonic film? Visually, from time to time, it is very appealing, but so is a drive across Death Valley. In a drive across an empty vista, the passenger is expected to fall asleep.Sorry, but not being from Georgia, US, or Georgia, Eurasia, I can't be tickled into enthusiasm by antique maps.The turning hare with a pipe in his mouth on the cover promises a kind of surreal adventure. This movie was all sleep and no dreams. If a team of filmmakers set out to produce a more tedious film experience, they could never achieve the triumph of.... What was it called? It doesn't matter.

I saw this movie last night followed by a Q&A with the director and editor. Here are 10 problems my friends Emily and Zann and I had with this film: 1. movie quote: "the city is not a place, it's a thing." you're telling me that little 5 points or the squares of Savannah are not places? why do so many people prefer to live in cities if they are just things? 2. the director referencing corbusier, the worst urban planner in history, as his source for this comment during the Q&A. "corbusier said that cities are machines." that's exactly why corbusier sucked, he would demolish vibrant places and build lifeless towers in a park because he didn't recognize or appreciate the value of place. two words: jane jacobs. 3. the hypocrisy of the director living in Atlanta while making a film about why cities are so bad. 4. movie quote: "the highway made the city possible." were there no cities before highways were built in the 1950's? he showed an animation of Atlanta developing around the highway. but Atlanta developed in the 1800's around rail lines and the highways later cut through and around the city. minor chronological error. 5. as Zann said, romanticizing the past: the historical south wasn't all pristine figurines happily dancing and holding hands. one word: slavery. 6. movie quote: "whether you are a gentleman farmer or a mindless drone." is there no in between here? are all city residents mindless drones? again the hypocrisy with him living in Atlanta. and again the romanticizing of "gentlemen" plantation owners of the past. 7. as Emily said, this movie could have been 30 minutes long, there were at least 6 times when the screen went black that i prayed he would roll the credits. during the Q&A he mentioned that this film took him 10 years to make and it's obvious why; it's amorphous. 8. the lack of a coherent argument. as Emily said, he stayed "on the surface" the whole time, never really digging deep enough to make his argument believable or respectable. 9. the completely slanted contrast of showing natural settings in rich color to represent the country and then black and white images of parking garages, stairwells and highways to represent the city. 10. if corbusier and saxby chambliss made a sequel to koyaanisqatsi inspired by donnie darko, this would be it.