What’s nice about 23 Mile, a new film by Mitch McCabe, is that it shows images many of them plain, scary, and shocking without reaching any conclusions. The director, who also produced and edited the nonfiction movie, leaves the camera running and lets people talk from all sides of the fights that happened in America in 2020 (and which are still happening). Many topics come up: The pandemic. Black Lives Matter. Donald Trump. Joe Biden. People fill McCabe with their words and then she moves on to someone else.
This hands-off approach to American divisiveness is interesting. For one thing, the movie feels strictly journalistic and therefore resoundingly apolitical which is good when covering controversial subjects. But there is also some worry that extreme voices are being given platforms without being challenged or corrected. This is one of the problems with today’s journalism: When should unfettered opinions, even wrong ones, be allowed to speak for themselves before turning off the cameras? What if opinions are based on false facts? Media companies have an obligation to inform viewers about what really happened (a word fraught with meaning), but what if those very facts now constitute part of the debate?
The reason I like McCabe’s method so much is that they get as close as possible to showing us really showing us what happened during this cataclysmic year in politics. We were tested in so many ways; 23 Mile records those tests for posterity. Some of the ideas put forward will surely be offensive to many people; however, it’s always valuable to spend time with individuals who have strong views on things they’re willing to talk about openly. Cable news shows often cut guests off midsentence just when they’re about to say something important. So do congressional hearings, so does Dr Anthony Fauci (though he has his reasons). People loosen up when they aren’t cut off. This is a fact, and McCabe’s cameras catch people in the act. Sometimes what they say is unhelpful, often it is untrue; but one person’s identity always comes through.
One woman travels from her home in West Virginia to sell Trump masks at a political rally, and because the camera doesn’t turn away, we learn about her life and her husband and her kids. The film does not spend time with this woman to justify her political beliefs, I think it spends time with her so that we can see ourselves in her eyes.
The movie isn’t about the whole country. It takes place in Michigan, which had a bad COVID year and an even worse presidential election year the state even had a governor kidnapping plot foiled, which serves as something of a bookend throughout.
Not all speech in the movie is productive or even seems terribly so. McCabe once catches two competing protesters who are essentially yelling into megaphones to drown each other out. Some might find it funny; others might mourn the death of decorum, while still others see people doing their best to exercise their First Amendment rights. To McCabe, it’s probably a microcosm of America, two megaphones screaming at each other. You can see the fault lines of this country in those few minutes.
As journalism, 23 Mile isn’t perfect. But as a document of place and time as a travelogue it’s powerful filmmaking. It is scary and maybe stupid to just hit record sometimes and let everything and everyone find its way into the lens of a professional documentary. Platforming criticism is real, but this film is able to capture more than most something that lasts well beyond 2024.
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