Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Our regular film festival sneaky spy Bungion Boy has started submitting reviews. In the past he's been at Sundance and now he's in New York catching a few Tribeca flicks. He has taken in a documentary called THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIGINIA, produced by Johnny Knoxville. This is the first I've heard of it, but BB wasn't too taken with the flick and from his write-up it doesn't sound like something up my particular alley either.

At any rate, let's listen to what Bungion Boy has to say on it. Enjoy!

Hey Harry, et al. Bungion Boy back here in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. Most years I haven’t seen much at this festival, as they seem to primarily feature less than stellar independent films with movie stars, (House of D, Finding Amanda, War inc.), but this year there were several titles that intrigued me. Last night I saw my first film of the week, Julien Nitzberg’s “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.” This documentary was produced by Johnny Knoxville, which makes a lot of sense because the family portrayed in this film behaves a lot like actors in “Jackass,” only without all the wise judgment and sound decisions. Yes, The White family of Boone County, WV is one of the most destructive and dysfunctional families I’ve ever seen put on film. All the women in the family have voices that could be mistaken for Wolfman Jack. It’s the kind of family that the whole town knows about and avoids. A family that is referenced in the police blotter on a weekly basis. Sam Shephard would take one look at this clan and start a new career writing children’s books. You get the idea.

Nitzberg’s film follows the White family around for a year filled with alcohol, drugs, and guns. As self described hillbillies, the Whites have been seen as folk heroes by musicians such as Hank Williams III, and the film struggles with alternately painting them as rebel clowns and tragic figures. I laughed quite a lot during this film, and most of that was at scenes displaying harmless stupidity. One sequence in particular, in which a White girl, (I lost track of the names, but they were mostly variations of Bo, Kirk, Dirk, and Jesco), getting out of prison and rekindling her love affair with her husband by revisiting the place they were married, inside a drug store. There are truly disturbing and sad scenes, as when a woman, who has just given birth, snorts crushed up pills in the hospital, a few feet away from her newborn daughter. The woman’s baby is ultimately taken from her by CPS and she spends the rest of the film trying to get it back. The baby became, for me, the only hero really worth rooting for in this film and I thanked God every time its mother lost another battle in regaining custody. It was pretty hard to laugh at and enjoy these people after seeing situations like this.

For the most part, the film wants you to laugh and have fun while watching it. So many of the drug and alcohol binge scenes are set to fun, fast, country music, and are quickly edited to make you feel like you’re part of the party. Too often we see wild nights and afternoons of drinking and snorting that is made to look more like crazy fun, rather than dangerous. A sequence in which a family member describes how he was shot in the face, chin, and eye by another drugged up, rampaging family member, is almost treated lightly with all the quick cuts and loud gunshot sound effects. I suppose the thought is that since the man survived his wounds and lived to tell the tale, then it wasn’t tragic, but kind of funny. Just another adventure in the White’s wild lifestyle. Even the shooter, in a prison interview, is confident that he’ll be released because he’s been before the judge before and they have a good relationship. I’ll admit that some of these portrayals didn’t bother me during the film as much as they did afterwards, when I was sitting through the director’s Q and A. I hate that my judgment of the film’s content was so affected by the discussion of the film afterwards, but just about every serious question that Nitzberg was presented with, he responded with a joke answer, laughing off the many drugs he observed them taking and all the many death threats he got from them over the course of filming.

I feel like I’m being a bit too hard on the film. There were several moments in the film that really moved me, like when we watch a mother apologize to her son for leaving him for rehab or another talking about her religion and certainty that she’ll be going to hell. There are also some big laughs that aren’t entirely at the expense of its subjects. I loved most of the integration of music in the film, primarily the songs by Hank Williams III. We hear testimony from some of cops and lawyers who have been on the other side of the White’s criminal acts, and a bit more of the public’s reaction to the White family might have helped put their presence a bit more in context. I would have liked to see more footage with the more private, introspective, albeit terribly disturbed Jesco White, though for that I could watch a documentary all about him, “Dancing Outlaw.” There is a lot to the film that is consistently fascinating, and while the filmmakers don’t really go out of their way to provide a purpose or message after recording this behavior, I would encourage an audience to see it to try to judge for themselves. If nothing else, this film was a conversation starter, as my friends and I discussed it for about an hour after the screening. This is, at times, an incredibly entertaining and interesting film. I just feel like it could have, and should have been more than that.

-Bungion Boy