“Middletown” would be tremendously powerful even without being aware of Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s larger body of work, but it hits especially hard as part of their recent devotion to making films about participation in American democracy. Their previous films of late – “Boys State” and “Girls State” were more explicit on this point, charting the individual pursuits of budding politicos as they navigated how to find the votes they needed to make their way into higher office in summer break simulations while they were in high school, and while Moss and McBaine return to these formative teenage years for their latest, it’s a look back at the students of Middletown High School during the 1990s who under the guidance of an idiosyncratic English teacher ended up making national news with their investigation of the Wallkill landfill, a toxic waste site built above an aquifer that was likely poisoning the local water supply. The students, many now in their fifties, may be awed by footage of the young, idealistic people they once were, but the film inspires the same reaction as Moss and McBaine demonstrate the utility of education and journalism in a healthy democracy, finding Middletown High to be a shining example of both.
The filmmakers are able to vividly tell the story of the Wallkill landfill investigation when every step of it was documented by the students themselves, handed cameras by their teacher Fred Isseks, who through happenstance ended up creating an A/V club-esque elective at the school. Portrayed as a bit of an oddball amongst the staff at the high school for his out-of-the-box thinking, Isseks wanted his class to be creators rather than consumers, creating an “Electronic English” class where instead of writing essays and reading the classics, students would follow their muse with handicams. Many music videos aping the Hype Williams style would be made, but when Isseks learned of a local farmer who was convinced the Wallkill landfill posed a major health threat, students take the initiative to start poking around local ponds that were suspiciously discolored and bring in public officials for town hall forum-like interviews that seemed innocent enough until they realized tougher questions were being asked than from any professional news outlet in the area.
Resentment grows from both the local newspaper that’s irked by insinuations they’re not doing their job and various assembly people and police who could be compromised as the students find evidence of corruption that has prevented anything being done about the clear hazard that the landfill presents. As a state wildlife pathologist who is brought in by the class to take water samples tells them and inspired by their initiative says, the resistance to their efforts even when they know they’re right may be the biggest lesson they learn and Moss and McBaine find a dimension in the footage that those who filmed it couldn’t have been aware of themselves as they were putting together a documentary of their own (“Garbage, Gangsters and Greed”) to air locally, observing how the teenagers’ confidence grows in asking questions and holding power to account. It can really seem as if you’re being swept up in the same feeling the students had of being a part of something bigger than themselves as the they see the impact that they can have and start to lose any illusions that the generation above them has their best interests at heart.
Some mild chronological chicanery is evident here and there when “Middletown” prioritizes the class of 1992 that began the Wallkill project and continued on through 1997, with the camcorder timestamps occasionally at odds with the narrative that’s being shared by former students who may have graduated before certain milestones in the investigation are reached. Yet that’s a small nitpick when McBaine, Moss and editor Christopher Passig wisely follow a core group from the originating class who had the biggest impression made on them by the investigative work that they were doing without depriving audiences of the wild characters that pop up due to the cumulative effect of their efforts, including a most curious informant named Mr. B. It’s a further sign of the filmmakers’ mastery of the form that they take the practical need for a classroom set to film interviews in as an opportunity to bring all involved back into the past with a meticulous recreation and there are brilliant touches throughout that take an accepted part of the form and creatively adds a twist. From the story being told to how it’s being told, inspiration is everywhere in “Middletown.”
“Middletown” will screen again at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30th at 2:30 pm at the Megaplex Redstone, February 1st at 3:30 pm at the Holiday Village Cinemas and February 2nd at 3:15 pm at the Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City.