Walter Brock's documentary Land, scheduled for national broadcast on PBS in April 2005, basically boils down to a decade-long neighbors' dispute. In Woodford County, Kentucky, a coalition of wealthy folks created an environmental activist group with the mission to halt the dissection of farmland for residential subdivision sales. This, in turn, led the farmers and developers (all self-made men, a fact which is endlessly repeated) who wanted to sell off their property for the construction of new homes, to accuse their affluent neighbors of class warfare, sparking a long-running brouhaha which played out in endless public meetings, private negotiations, and court appearances. From an outsider's perspective, there are no heroes and villains here. Rather, we see a sorry collection of self-absorbed, self-righteous, and selfish people hiding behind straw arguments of ecological preservation and entrepreneurship as a means to grow and maintain their individual fortunes. Conspicuously absent from the film are the residents of the homes that were eventually constructed on the subdivided land or, indeed, local elected officials (it seems odd that no government agency had any opinion in the matter--one of the environmental activists is the wife of a former Kentucky governor, though he never appears on camera). Brock may have intended to create a serious meditation on land development and the disappearance of American farmland, but the result plays out more like an arid version of the Hatfields and McCoys. Optional. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)
Land (And How It Gets That Way)
(2004) 57 min. VHS: $199. Walter Brock Productions. PPR. Color cover. Volume 20, Issue 2
Land (And How It Gets That Way)
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