Salt of the earth

You may or may not know that the Salton Sea is a massive industrial accident in the Southern California desert that briefly turned into a booming resort before it became an environmental catastrophe. Two filmmakers, with one of whom I am acquainted, have created Plagues & Pleasures On The Salton Sea, a documentary that fits squarely with my interest in weird Americana. Narrated by John Waters, the 71-minute film is often fast-paced and witty, but raises serious questions about how to proceed with one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. It's playing all week at the Red Vic, so if you're in town I recommend making time for it. [Note: It's not this film.]

There are some remarkable shots -- the Park Service workers dragging dead pelicans across the same beaches where millions of dead fish wash up every year, the nonagenarian shutting down his diner for the last time, the aerial shot of the nearly-abandoned town of Salton City. There are some characters you couldn't make up -- the boozy Hungarian, the naked guy by the side of the road, the mountain-building Christian artist. The key lines? "This is the last frontier," says the one woman, and, "At this point, I can't really afford to live anywhere else," says the other guy (paraphrased). Damn. The Salton Sea: where the Old West goes to die. Harper's ran a great story about this a few years ago too, although the film doesn't mention the article's most memorable subject: the truly terrifying Slab City.

I met the Plagues filmmaker at the Jim White documentary I discussed last year. I bring this up because both films occasionally confront the same challenge in documenting an unprosperous America with little hope for a bright future: How do you avoid making fun of them when they seem like they're making fun of themselves unknowingly? As with the White film, there were times when the San Francisco audience laughed at things I didn't think were funny, and were probably not supposed to be funny. I suppose all a filmmaker can do is point the camera and use what's provocative, but there has to be a point when he must decide whether his edit is either too mocking or too forgiving. Anyway I think these guys got it right -- the film does genuinely convey that some people still find this place beautiful, and I bet if I went there I'd find something to like too, but the area is unmistakably going downhill and getting weirder by the year.

Still, the film saves its big question for the last section: What the hell do you do with a 375-square-mile sewer of agricultural runoff that has lost its tourism economy and turned into a poisoned bird sanctuary? With 100 million dubiously edible tilapia swimming in it, 7.6 million of which have died in a single day? Where it's 120 degrees in the summer, where you can buy a house for $3,000 but no one wants to? Do you let it waste away and deal with the problems, the alkaline dust storms? Do you nurse it back to health at enormous expense, and risk Mother Nature bringing in a whole new set of problems? (She always gets her way, you know.) Hell, I don't know. Nobody knows -- not even Sonny Bono, the surprising hero of the region's inhabitants.

It looks like there's a TV version that could turn up on PBS or cable, so if the film doesn't get screened where you live, you might see the edit one day soon.

More fascinating stuff here and here.

FMFM: Quincy Jones' Big Band Bossa Nova, which has its moments. The Mingus cover does not top the original, and the "Desafinado" isn't all that special. Jones' original, the opening track, is the best one.