Vanish is a documentary directed, produced, and written by Jim Westphalen, officially selected for the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. The film follows Westphalen, a fine art photographer, on his journey across America to document the country's disappearing rural structures. Combining elements of art, history, and adventure, Westphalen captures stunning images of aging barns, one-room schoolhouses, grain elevators, prairie churches, and other classic structures that form the backbone of America's rural heritage.
The documentary glances into the historical and architectural significance of these structures, offering insights through interviews with preservation experts and the individuals dedicated to saving these cultural landmarks. These interviews provide context and highlight the ongoing efforts to preserve these vanishing pieces of American history.
As someone who lives in an up-until-recently rural area, I could only find one word to describe Vanish as a whole: Masturbatory. Westphalen goes on and on and on about his personal nostalgia and quest to photograph these old buildings, often ignoring the societal and monetary reasons behind their abandonment. He asks a question early on that really earned my ire: “Does nobody else care about these places?” The answer is, “Yes! Plenty have and do!” The problem, which remains utterly underexplored throughout the documentary, is money! These people can no longer afford to upkeep their properties because of the encroachment of factory farming, imported foodstuffs, and other such issues of market globalization. And it’s not like just anyone can come along and fix the building up under our country’s property laws either.
At times, Vanish almost seeks to blame these people who through various unfortunate circumstances can no longer keep their property in the condition it was during the agricultural booms of the late 1800s while at the same time heaping praise onto people who simply have enough extra cash to spend on personal preservation and restoration projects. As someone who didn’t have to wait half their life or move to the big city to see their beloved landmarks and landscapes disappear under the asphalt of parking lots or the slow decay of time, I was insulted at the sheer thoughtlessness of this documentary. It offers no call to action, no solutions, and not enough real history to be of value to most people. Frustratingly, it also fails to be a substantive photography documentary. If you’re looking for a documentary that is an exercise in pure nostalgia, consider Vanish. Otherwise, there are far better titles about historic preservation and rural America available.