User Reviews

I saw this reasonably well-filmed documentary at SXSW in Austin, TX. The young film makers have tried really hard to make a slice of life film about their small home town in Ohio. While the film is pretty, charming, and some of filming is quite good, it lacks the depth and critical edge necessary for solid documentary film making. I think that in filming their own home town, they were unable to really be objective.

The film takes an overly romanticized view of small town life focusing on the county fair, the barber shop, trick-or-treaters at Halloween, fishing trips, the local radio station and especially on the high school football team. There is no real sense of the problems and difficulties faced by small town America. There is no real story and they jump around without a single character or story to give the film a clear focus. Small town America faces serious economic and social problems, but you wouldn't know that from this Norman Rockwell Americana view. Also, at 90 minutes the film is a bit too long and at times just a bit too slow. The film has heart, but needs to dig deeper to deliver a story that hasn't been told many times before.

The first thing you should know about this film is that there's no plot or narrative. Not much happens. There's no excitement, no action, no resolution, and unusually for a documentary, no point of view being pushed.

This is a short movie about life in a small town in America. We see people going about their daily business, talking about everyday things, and that's about it.

This is very different to most films, which are driven by an evolving storyline and often a liberal helping of action or drama of one sort or another. There's no contrived conflict here, no dramatic music or camera work.

This film is a collage of bits and pieces of people just existing. It creates a sense of place in quite an organic feeling way. We get a picture of a town that still retains a real feeling of community, where life hasn't yet given way to the rush of the big city.

Capturing that slice of small town life and presenting it to the viewer is what this film is really all about. It's a different kind of viewing experience from your average documentary, and a pleasant change from the norm.

"45365" has far better images and sound and editing than I've come to expect from documentaries. In fact cinematography is one of its strongest characteristics. All the images are very high resolution. The viewer is left wondering how they did that when the whole screen fills with a gorgeous nature shot. Color depth is significant too - a shot of subtle shifts in the color of the light as clouds pass overhead could easily look washed out and boring in another film, but it comes through here. Watch this film in a theater or projected or at least on the biggest baddest HD screen you can find; if you just watch it on a TV-in-a-box, you'll miss a big part of what it's all about.

I found the editing and cutting to be pretty quick and effective. I was never tempted to sink back into my popcorn and ignore the screen for a while. Then again, I'm nearly sixty and my motor probably runs slower than yours and I've sat through some really sllooowwww films. This film is not a borefest of interest only to cineasts - but many won't find it gripping either.

Lots of different ideals of what a "documentary" is are associated with lots of different styles of film-making. The particular kind of documentary motivating this film avoids any kind of analysis like the plague. It goes even further, trying to have no Point Of View at all. No POV means no story line nor plot in the traditional sense, and no resolution of any kind. It's unfair though to say the film shows only the "good parts" of small town life. Weird and fraying and busted relationships are shown. Legal and illegal drug use and alcoholism are shown. Crushing boredom leading to escapism is shown. People are shackled for their court appearance and face jail time. What's not shown --nor even commented on obliquely-- is either "why" people behave this way or whether a "significant" proportion of the population is affected.

The film helps you imagine life in a small town. What it doesn't do is give you it's opinion of whether that life would be "good" or "bad".

Have to agree with the reviewer who said this is largely a waste of time. I understand that a lot of the film's structure is intended to be artistic, but unlike most Independent Lens productions I've seen, this one seems to shout, "Look how artistic we can be," without the underlying thematic content to back it up. I didn't find this to be a worthwhile viewing, although the filmography, as always with Independent Lens, is conducted beautifully. Still, images with no continuity make for an unfulfilling experience.

As with the other reviewer, I also would have liked to see more tangible experiences in these people's lives to allow me to connect with them on some level beyond the mere pictorial. This film feels like a collage of images with no deeper thread to provide meaning and relevance.

What was the point? I saw this at the Savannah Film Festival, and people walked out. I stayed, thinking there would be a point. There wasn't. There was no story about a bunch of people I didn't care about.

They show the football coach giving the pep talk about the homecoming game, but we never learn if they won the game.

We see the judge conducting his reelection campaign, and hear some of the returns, but did he win? We'll never know.

There was no narration, no commentary, no continuity. And what was with the individual digits of the zip code popping up during the movie?

What a waste of time! This was the worst movie I saw at the festival this year, possibly the worst of all time.