This final installment in a trilogy about Florida by Georg Koszulinski, who teaches film studies at Seattle University, blends various strands—travelogue, animation, historical analysis, found footage, memoir—into an evocative, even somewhat hallucinatory reverie on the ways in which the state has been transformed by the diverse desires of human beings. Koszulinski begins with visionary schemes, from the weird cosmological ramblings of Cyrus Teed, who in the late 19th century planned a “New Jerusalem” in the swamp, to the unrealized dream of entrepreneurial developers and their hopeful investors to build a huge community called Golden Gates Estates. Koszulinski then proceeds to explore landscapes such as the Everglades and the manmade white-sand beaches frequented by tourists, while also addressing mythical creatures like mermaids and the so-called skunk ape that Floridians impersonate in amusement parks or try to track down. Juxtaposing gated communities against the natural world represented by his aged grandfather's garden, and comparing his childhood recollections with modern realities, Koszulinski concludes with a visit to remote Flamingo in the far south, where the muddy coast still resembles the landscape that European explorers encountered some five hundred years ago—before reminding us that the flamingo, a longstanding symbol of the state, isn't really native either. Koszulinski's impressionistic take on Florida is definitely idiosyncratic, but it's also an engaging journey that is well worth taking. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)
Last Stop, Flamingo
(2013) 56 min. DVD: $15: individuals; $40 w/PPR: institutions. Substream Films. Volume 30, Issue 2
Last Stop, Flamingo
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