June 17, 1998

Showings:
June 18 - Colonial Promenade, 7:15pm

There's no denying it: we live in a world of increasing corporate domination where most anything small or minutely original (i.e. INDEPENDENT) faces the very real possibility of being squelched. Consider the American farmer - a prime example of the struggle for survival in a world of "bigger is better." Harvest, a film written and directed by Stuart Burkin, delicately and cleverly explores the moral and ethical dilemma of a Pennsylvania farmer who turns to growing marijuana as a cash crop in order to save his farm and family's way of life.

"So long as it's still ours," Andy Yates's father tells him. Keeping the family farm, owning the land, is the primary means of selfhood for this farmer; it means sustenance and self-sufficiency - and the emasculating effect of losing it is not an option. The film clearly contrasts the dichotomy between the older and younger generations in Oxford, an age-old theme that appears in many cultural arenas, but is particularly poignant in this film: if Andy Yates doesn't want to continue his family tradition, and if the ugly world of corporate persuasion won't allow him to, a whole way of life will disappear. The Yates would have to join the rest of mediocrity in one of the grids of planned communities carved out of the hills of Pennsylvania. But there's still the ethical dilemma of growing marijuana. The tension between these two "evils" is one that eventually propels the community into action to avoid being governed by the outside world.

This isn't a film about a bunch of subversive potheads trying to secede from the federal government; rather, it's a piece about personal responsibility to family and community and the desires to be left alone to prosper and live quietly. And the characters' language most readily reflects this unhurried pace, as the script thrives on what is not spoken more than what is. The camera thoroughly works the characters' physiognomy to create another script entirely of subtext. So when the DEA agent (played by Orlando's own Mary McCormack) starts snooping around the town, the locals employ an intricate system of communication - one of understated glances and coy answers to keep her in the dark, without being deliberately dishonest.

Harvest's characters are genuine and likable, yet complex under the veneer of "simplified country folk." Don't miss the next opportunity to see Harvest - it's a well-crafted, carefully scripted work about the potential for self-sufficiency in a country that far too often submits to the pressures of corporate power.

Jodie Marion I teach Composition at UCF while also studying for my Master's degree, which should be completed--hopefully--before the turn of the century. In the meantime I write for the Central Florida Hispanic (Education section) and especially dig reading Lawrence Durrell. Other Articles I've Written