Much has been made and questioned about the authenticity of the material provided in Damon Russell's Snow on Tha Bluff, and through the research I've done, I resort to calling it a mockumentary for two reasons. NOTE: On a final note, consider how I call this film a "mockumentary" in my opening paragraph.
Snow on Tha Bluff is more of a reenactment. It didn't provide me with the same enjoyment I got from a similar documentary, The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virgina, which was spry, fun, often comedic, and insightful, and it was authentic. It's an impacting picture - one I'd hesitate to watch again. It's a film that does what I love, which exposes other cultures and compares how drastically different they are or how closely they mirror the audience's, and it does it all too effectively, which is what makes the film even more valuable and hence why there is the looming sadness and nihilism to go along with it. I return to the statement I make at the beginning, which was, "I was filled to the brim with sadness and nihilism" while watching Snow on Tha Bluff. Rarely does a sentence become clear when we either have three or more people talking at the same time, with no respect for conversational poetry or fluency or just mumbled, incomprehensible gibberish in place of actual sentence continuity.
The final thing to mention about this film is its dialog, which is often incoherent, overly-loud, mumbled, yet accurate to the culture, I presume. Notice how I consistently say "one more day" or "the next morning." There's no macro-scope on life in "the Bluff." For children, it's "if I grow up," not "when I grow up." It's those little hurting details that make Snow on Tha Bluff, a documentary that is seemingly staged but apparently not far from life, on the track of realism. They keep him on a steady, viable income and assist in feeding home and his kids one more day out of the year. Snow acknowledges that, but turns around says that they, however, do help one afford monthly rent. We've been told for years that drugs are bad and that we should stay away from them. He constantly is worried about his two children and their mother, always trying to have enough money in hand to provide them with luxuries, but finds the only way he can keep giving them what they need is by giving other individuals what they really don't need, which are drugs.
While Snow lives in the impoverished, economically destitute community of "the Bluff," his day-to-day struggles (aside from drug robberies and shootouts) likely mirror those of a middle class family. The Bluff seems to be the blackhole of the state of Georgia education is non-existent, the culture is morally bankrupt, the people are violent and near, if not already, a complete and total wreck, and the only two concerns we see present are living to open your eyes the next morning and possessing enough drugs to get you through the night. He tells how he has lost several family members to the rough and tumble gang violence of the Bluff and goes on to show how he has fathered children with different mothers, and is struggling to provide them with the necessities of living a fulfilling and enriching life. Activities such as theft, shootouts, drug sales, and drug robberies all commence with Snow at the forefront of everything. What follows is Snow having his buddy Damon Russell film his large group of friends and how they interact with each other and deal with day-to-day complications in one of Atlanta's roughest neighborhoods. It, at first, concerns a group of three college students, driving through the seedy "Bluff" neighborhood where they meet Curtis Snow, who first hops in their car appearing to be interested in selling them all sorts of drugs, before robbing them at gunpoint and stealing their camera. This is a well-made film, which is a good thing because it gives me something to recommend and makes a valid use of my time, but bad because it's all too effective. A cacophony of madness, lawlessness, and sickening behavior done by the lost wandering souls of a dangerous neighborhood in Atlanta nicknamed "the Bluff." By the end of this picture, which runs only seventy-nine minutes, I was filled to the brim with sadness and nihilism. In Curtis Snow's debut mockumentary, Snow on Tha Bluff, it captures dehumanizing events of absolutely depressing measures. Cameras are truly remarkable things, wouldn't you say? They have one major job, which is keeping an unblinking record of what is placed in front of it after being activated.
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