THE STORY – A sharp look at the American South’s unreconciled history through a Mississippi town that mixes antebellum tourism with a community deeply divided over its past.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Suzannah Herbert (Director/Writer) & Pablo Proenza (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 86 Minutes
“Older people sometime wants it to remain the same, but regardless of what you want, you can’t live in the past.”
The city of Natchez, Mississippi, feels like the remnants of a country long gone, yet its history remains potent to those who live there. It’s a tiny city with a population of little over 14,000 people that somehow attracts tourists from all around the country. Why Natchez out of all places? That question is what entices a filmmaker like Suzannah Herbert to investigate it firsthand. Her new film, “Natchez,” plunges itself deeply into the city’s tourism industry, which is simultaneously at odds with its history and how each individual reckons with it. From the opening moments of “Natchez,” an eeriness emanates through the gorgeously captured scenery, one that feels palpable enough to be felt throughout every massive manor still haunted by the tragedies of its past. What is it about Antebellum tourism that even draws an audience? Is there a genuine historical curiosity derived from a place of sincerity? Is it only people fetishizing a perception of a time that is nowhere near as glamorous as it was?
Herbert follows a variety of personalities in “Natchez” who veer into that territory. Audiences meet multiple tour guides, some of whom only benefit from these tours. These ladies, like tour guide Tracy, even emphasize the impact of the Natchez Garden Club on the city to the point of erasure, cosplaying in hoop skirts while giving their tours. As Tracy battles with her problems personally, she loses herself for some time in extravagant fashion and escapes as she hustles to make money. But for people like Tracey and many others in “Natchez,” it is an escape. They can understand the horrors of what happened but don’t fully grapple with it. Herbert’s dichotomy of the somewhat gentle retelling of history is only tackled head-on by subjects like Rev (his name is also Tracy), a black tour guide running his little operation on the side when he isn’t busy preaching to his congregation. Rev has a deep passion for history. His perspective is built on enlightenment, telling tourists every aspect of Natchez’s painful history and how the effects of its racist past still affect those who live there to this day. Rev presents an honesty that only someone from his experience can bring. A perspective that isn’t sugarcoated.
There are others like Rev fighting to show all sides of what makes Natchez the city it is today. Herbert’s examination of who gets to tell history is the underlying thesis that makes her documentary one of the best films that played at Tribeca. Its direct nature is only amplified by Pablo Proenza’s razor-sharp editing, which even works during the film’s more comedic moments. Herbert and Proenza, who co-wrote “Natchez,” perfectly find the throughline where each individual holding differing viewpoints is just trying to get by. Natchez is a city where people of all backgrounds find tourism as a lifeline. Herbert takes a moment to showcase these subjects’ personal lives to a degree, but audiences will be shocked to see there isn’t much to it. It’s a town where their obsession with the past is constantly taking hold of their present. It’s what keeps the city alive and the people in it. There are moments where Noah Collier’s cinematography perfectly captures that feeling. The spacious halls of these mansions are filled with furniture from what feels like lifetimes ago. There are generations of families living in these manners (or former slave quarters) with plenty of stories to be told.
Herbert’s direction is meditative to a degree; even a film as thorny as “Natchez” doesn’t fall into the same pitfalls one would expect. By the end, it may leave some in the same emotional space, unfilled with how one would answer the question of “Whose story is it to tell?” Maybe that’s not the point as to what Herbert is trying to achieve with “Natchez.” It works well enough to have audiences get lost within this community and question members of this community (especially one specific individual that comes to mind). Whether we like it or not, for everyone in “Natchez,” despite their various perspectives, their shared history makes the town what it is. Only the truth can pave the way for what is right, and watching the film, you certainly get a sense of what perspectives fall in line with how history unfolded.
