Inspired by Gary Cooper's character in a movie about the tobacco trade which he believes is based on his great-grandfather, 'Sherman's March' documentarian Ross McElwee tries to make a documentary about the rampant tobacco industry in North Carolina here. As anyone who has seen 'Sherman's March' would know, McElwee (much like Nick Broomfield) has a tendency to make his documentaries equally about himself researching a subject as the subject itself and the highlight of 'Bright Leaves' is McElwee's obsession with the Cooper movie - a film he has watched so many times that he has memorised every subtle hand movement. The film's single best part is an interview with Bosnian film director Vlada Petric who carts McElwee around on a wheelbarrow in order to make McElwee's film more "kinesthetic". Petric hits some nails quite sharply on the head in terms how overly complex McElwee's project is and 'Bright Leaves' therefore really becomes about McElwee's persistence more than anything else. On the downside, this leads to the film being very light on tobacco related content; whereas in 'Sherman's March', one really discovered some things about General Sherman as well as McElwee, the same cannot really be said here. Still, it is a commendable effort and arguably more intriguing than a straightforward tobacco documentary would have been.

I was fascinated as to how truly bad this movie was. Was the viewer supposed to learn something, or reflect on anything here? What was up with the pumpkins? Was I supposed to be impressed with the motel shots? Does it matter that there are some garbage bags on a rooftop across the street of a hotel? Why does the narrator unsuccessfully mock the people he interviews (it is so obvious that he edited out the really informative parts of his interviews to achieve mockery). The best part of the movie was the interview with the film professor who tells us how bad this movie will be even before it is finished.I am truly amazed. I believe that the creator is struggling to become an intellectual or is trying to impress the intellectual community.

The author sets out on a "journey of discovery" of his "roots" in the southern tobacco industry because he believes that the (completely and deservedly forgotten) movie "Bright Leaf" is about an ancestor of his. Its not, and he in fact discovers nothing of even mild interest in this absolutely silly and self-indulgent glorified home movie, suitable for screening at (the director's) drunken family reunions but certainly not for commercial - or even non-commercial release. A good reminder of why most independent films are not picked up by major studios - because they are boring, irrelevant and of no interest to anyone but the director and his/her immediate circles. Avoid at all costs!

While it is still a personal documentary from McElwee, the master of the form, "Bright Leaves" is a film that speaks far beyond the personal. As McElwee films across the south, it seems everyone-- smoker or nonsmoker-- has a relationship with tobacco. The most amazing thing about the film is the filmmaker's even handedness and understanding for the pull that cigarette smoking has on his subjects, even though the filmmaker himself has never had a tobacco habit to peak of. Given Michael Moore's work and other popular documentaries of the day, the expectation is that "Bright Leaves" would have a stern and condemning view of the tobacco industry. On the contrary, he gives humorous insight on the age-old habit. McElwee's writing, as found in his narration, is incredibly poetic as it rolls along the blue hills of North Carolina. Even weeks later, I think of that last sequence of shots, the tanker of tobacco heading off to far lands, the shots of his son, and understand why I myself, like so many, have this attraction to smoking, or what McElwee calls the urge to give pause to time, and likens to his own filmmaking and photography.The most how genius moment features Vlada Petric, and McElwee's long standing side character, Charlene, is still a gift. The film really does stick with you for a long, long time, and deserves lots of exposure and great distribution.