The in Between

Filmmaker Robie Flores returned to her hometown on the Texas/Mexico border after her brother's untimely death to make this quasi-documentary/coming-of-age memory film/portrait of a border town. This is one of those deeply personal docs people seem to fall all over themselves to praise these days, but I found it pleased with itself to an alienating degree. At one point, Flores talks about looking for videos of her late brother because she can’t stand the idea of a generic slideshow playing at his funeral. But still photography can be evocative and profound in ways home videos strung together with ponderous narration almost never are.