Few films are as bizarre and taxing as James Benning's "Deseret," a minimalist (to say the least) documentary about Utah . . . and the changing face of journalism.
The latter element, however, is not revealed until the end of the film, as the credits explain that the spoken narration has been made up of snippets of actual news stories published over the past 140 years in "the paper of record," the New York Times.If that revelation came at the front of the film, it might be easier for audience members to recognize that they are hearing evidence of the changing face of newspaper reporting over the years.
Most of the early readings sound like first-person testimonials from prejudiced parties, while the later stories are more tempered and neutral - although they all seem equally sensational.
On the screen, there is no action, only static images of various regions of Utah's (mostly) rural scenery - images that seem to have been spliced together at random.
And the narration, those New York Times newspaper stories - or, more correctly, the "sound-bite" sentences taken from those stories - read like a laundry list of Utah's image-busting ills.
As such, "Deseret" might be construed - or, perhaps, misconstrued - as anti-Utah or anti-Mormon. From raving declarations about Brigham Young and the LDS Church, the Mountain Meadows massacre and Utah's many ill-fated statehood bids to nuclear testing, toxic-waste dumps, Melvin Dummar, Gary Gilmore, Mark Hof-mann . . . .
All that's missing is Enid Waldholtz - and only because the film was finished before her problems surfaced.
The images on the screen are black and white for the first half of the film, shifting to color when the newspaper stories hit the turn of the century.
And while "Deseret" does have its rewards, it's a matter of taste as to whether those rewards are worth the film's 83-minute running time - which definitely seems longer.
Let's just say the Utah Travel Council won't be calling Benning to see if his film can be used in a "Come to Utah" campaign.