“In the 1940s, the US military built an airbase on the Caribbean island
of St. Lucia, and brought with them their love of country music. The
airbase is long gone, but the country music never left.”
This
spare introduction is the only context offered, and the only context
necessary, for viewers to understand the elegant simplicity of Make Mine
Country. Part cinéma vérité style documentary, part dreamscape, this
film is a contemplation on the common humanity of people from vastly
different cultures. Played against a background of poverty and
disenfranchisement to which even the bluest of country-western
balladeers would be hard-pressed to relate, Make Mine Country explores
the ways in which the entire population of a distant tropical island has
come to embrace the music of rural America. Though the particulars of
their circumstances may differ, it quickly becomes clear that despairing
hearts know no color. Through glimpses of the lives of a professional
country musician, a mother of fourteen, and a gravedigger (among
others), we are shown how the folk musical tradition of a western nation
has come to have an enormous cultural and spiritual impact on the
population of a small Caribbean island. The filmmaker all but silent and
invisible, the intimacy of these portraits is transportive, and it is
easy to lose yourself in the moment and the music alongside the
beautiful people you meet along the way.
Post-screening Q&A with Director Ian Berry, Producer Ted Hurliman, and Editor Jason Rouse.