Directed by Matt Porterfield, Appearing in Person.
With Stephanie Vizzi, Chris Meyers, Sarah Seipp-Williams
USA 2006, 16mm, color, 67 min

In Porterfield's debut, his cast of mostly non-actors spends long, languid summer days in the Baltimore neighborhood of the title. Narrative tension and melodrama never quite erupt; instead they simmer obliquely beneath blank looks, passive gestures and sparse dialogue. Lena and Joe, young unmarried parents, appear attached by indirect, inarticulate communication and clumsy, fleeting affections. Friends and family look on amid the mid-summer Hamilton sounds and spaces which are also given ample room to sprawl in the suburban haze. Starkly circumventing exposition and plot device with a measured composition and unhurried observation, Porterfield's Hamilton basks in summer's simple pleasures and its quiet conflagrations.