Uncommon Senses

Jost's documentary about how America constructs and consumes its own mythology begins as an oblique attack on its subject, but in an odd way ends up as American as the Constitution it criticises. Divided into ten parts, each looking at different aspects of the USA - its centre, its coasts, its roads, people, money, military power and so on - the film amounts to a lengthy and eloquent broadside on the 'entrepreneurial' ethic in America, and ends with a controversial straight-to-camera speech from the director that might be described as a contemporary and cinematic version of Thoreau's On Civil Disobedience. Funny, sinister and engrossingly watchable, a riveting vision of a country and the forces that shape it, it's a surprising and accessible success for a director notorious for his low-budget minimalism.