Allensworth

It’s difficult to imagine the sort of people who might happily sit down to watch Allensworth in a cinema, but it’s easy to assume that there can’t be many of them. The film’s central proposition is an honourable one, but it’s presented in a way that practically encourages the mind to wander.

Despite briefly thriving after its 1908 founding, the town of Allensworth, California experienced significant depopulation in the subsequent decades. It has a small permanent population, with many of its historic buildings being painstakingly restored, and the town is noteworthy for being the very first jurisdiction in California to be governed by African Americans. Filmmaker James Benning has produced a fairly motionless depiction that attempts to capture echoes of Allensworth’s past.

Allensworth takes viewers through an entire year in the location, in just a whisker over 60 minutes. Each month is allocated around five minutes, and those are taken up by a fixed, not especially panoramic shot of a focal point – whether that be a tree, a graveyard or a home (dilapidated or restored). The month is announced with a title card, the unbroken shot rolls for approximately five minutes, before the screen goes dark and the next month begins. There’s no action in the conventional sense, although a train, a car or even a person may move through the background. 

There are some to whom a documentary such as Allensworth is stimulating, but viewers who are not amongst those ranks will wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into. The unadorned imagery on the screen encourages inspection. It’s natural to scrutinise the film to check for signs of movement, just to make sure that Benning isn’t simply displaying a series of photographs; but once that task has been completed, the mind does wander, and it’s unsatisfying to sit through a work that actively encourages its audience to think about literally anything else that might cross their mind – like the fact that their time could be better spent elsewhere.

Oliver Johnston

Allensworth does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Allensworth here: