Ghosts Along The Freeway

From the creators of the award-winning Ghost Dance, which commemorated the centennial of the Wounded Knee Massacre, this latest effort is an interesting, thought-provoking, reflection on how technology effects changes in our lives. Specifically, the film looks at a section of I-94, the freeway running through the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and inquires: "what was here before?" Combining historic photographs, contemporary interviews, and 1950s film footage of the building of the freeway, Ghosts uses several examples of neighborhoods where flourishing communities were disrupted by the building of the freeway (whole sides of streets were leveled). The film is neither a reactionary response to mass transportation, nor a critical commentary on the notion of progress. (One senses that the filmmakers, Christine Craton and Tim Schwab, are sympathetic to the vague sense of "loss" described by some of the interviewees, but in the span of 10 minutes, the film can do no more than offer a brief meditation on the subject.) Defying simple categorization, Ghosts Along the Freeway is not comprehensive enough to warrant any conclusions about the effects of mass transportation on the psychological landscape (although the effects on the physical landscape are clear enough), but neither is it a simplistic diatribe on the loss of fill-in-the-blank. Neither fish nor fowl, the film does serve as a melancholy prod to our higher faculties, and spurring thought, as opposed to providing conclusive answers, is no mean feat--few films can claim even this much. Recommended. (Available from: Unity Productions, 7400 S.W. 70th St., Aberdeen, SD 57401.)