The avant-garde filmmaker James Benning, born in 1942, has dedicated himself to the documentary surveying of US territory. So also in “The United States of America”. Text panels announce places in the 52 states in alphabetical order, followed by 52 almost two-minute static shots that are assigned to them: dry rivers and mountains, homeless people, industrial plants and prisons.
The resolution of any specificity is ingenious: sometimes Benning only films a flag in the wind, sometimes just the clouds, while the change between places prescribed by the alphabet causes wild leaps through the geography and a punchline in the credits completely questions the connection between text and image . The deserted landscape shots do not form an image of a united nation, but rather meditate on the USA as fiction and as a settler-colonial construct. Thanks to its calm structure, it is an infinitely satisfying film (as always with Benning) and a school for looking carefully.
The United States of America, USA 2022. – Director, Script, Camera: James Benning. Arsenal film distribution, 98 min. Theatrical release: May 26, 2022.