Hot Docs 2025 - An American Pastoral Review

To be frank, the political divide in the United States right now is undebatable. Honest, civil conversations and looking out for your neighbour are hard to be found. A vocal minority of extremism has left many Americans and non-Americans fearing for the safety of themselves and their loved ones. For those trying to check out some documentaries in an attempt to escape those harsh realities, this is not the one. 

Directed by French filmmaker Auberi Edler, An American Pastoral brings us to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. The film is completely created in the Cinema Verité format - Cameras are placed in corners of rooms, no interviews are heard, the filmmaker’s presence is not diegetic. We are purely observing the shift in this town as it occurs. We are introduced to a group of Christian fundamentalists that are part of a movement called FreePA. In essence, they’re right wing extremists. Their battle to take over the values of the town starts with their running to head the district school board, and their advocacy to remove LGBTQ+ content from their libraries, too much opposition. From here, we are taken on the campaign trail - we get balanced looks at each member of the school board, each of the candidates holding wildly different ideologies. This all happens as Elizabethtown shifts into values and ideology that are vastly unfamiliar.

It’s crucial that a non-American filmmaker made this, and it’s why it deserves to exist. Edler knows that this speaks for itself, and that’s a powerful thing to be aware of as a filmmaker. She feels no need to add manipulative music, have any of the subjects address her directly. She understands that the intrigue is all right in front of our eyes - and there is so much to be absorbed. Some of what ends up in her frame, non-intentionally, even facial expressions of audience members in school board hearings - feels like poetry in motion. You can tell she has a large admiration for some of her filmmaking predecessors like Frederick Wiseman and D.A. Pennebaker. Sometimes, the feeling it evokes matches the quality those filmmakers have reached.

The editing is pretty skillful too - the placements of establishing shots right between moments that deserve the most pondering are staggeringly effective. She wants you as an audience to bask in your frustration with some of the interactions, and it works. The one thing that holds it back is the presence of much footage that doesn’t affect the most impactful parts of the school-board campaign storyline. Footage of some of the members of the board having bigoted conversations in their backyard just feels like an easy attempt at getting audiences shocked. It’s most provocative when it’s focused on that through line, and if it was - it could’ve been a near perfect film. It might be too frustrating or difficult to watch for many, but for fans of Verité and Direct Cinema - this one is for you.

Rating: 8/10

Hot Docs 2025 runs until today, May 4th, with a few screenings remaining. Tickets can be purchased at hotdocs.ca. Film Movement will release this film later this year.