Almost There

Almost There

Upon entering Peter Anton’s old house which is located in East Chicago, Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden are so shell-shocked by its dilapidated state that they have to come back with masks. The filmmakers regard Anton’s childhood home as a fast deteriorating place where the utilities have long been disconnected. Mold grows everywhere and there is a sign on the door saying it’s occupied and not condemned. They fear that it might collapse anytime and tell Anton he should stay somewhere else but he refuses because among many other things, his several decades’ worth of artwork are inside.

One could easily think “Almost There” is a film about old people who live in poverty and have slipped through America’s social safety net. It turns out to be an uncomfortable trip through an artist’s later years, a frank look at how the movie-makers went wrong at their job while never getting beyond their biggest problem. This becomes an issue for me as your friendly reviewer; the film-makers have asked that we not reveal what happens in “Almost There”, which was disclosed to me and colored my experience of watching it beyond repair. So I will try my best to dance around this elephant in every room possible, but just to be safe let me say: SPOILER ALERT!

Rybicky met Anton at a pierogi festival in 2006 where he sketched portraits of festival goers. But it was when he showed them a scrapbook full of his work entitled “Almost There”, part of a 12-book autobiography filled with sketches, sayings and other things he wanted included, that Rybicky got really interested. On page 657 (of the “Almost There” series), Anton wrote “one final goals life is tell my story may be left others so.” In 2008 Rybicky joined forces with Wickenden as co-conspirators in telling Anton’s tale to wider audiences.

They go back down to East Chicago, Indiana again to see more of his work. “East Chicago is the type of place you’d drive pass, but never into”, we’re told; the narration is accompanied by images showing us just how poor this part of town really is although nothing can prepare us for Anton’s house. Despite their fear that it might collapse at any moment, Anton insists on staying here because he has been very big on the concept of “home” and this building has been home for him for over half a century; also he has a small group of friends who look after him, and they have stuck by him through thick and thin.

As we go along in “Almost There,” we meet some of these people and find out why they stick around with Anton despite his irascible personality which sometimes leads him into confrontations with them. We also start to recognize similarities between our own lives as filmmakers and those lived by Peter Anton.

The documentarians are inspired by Anton’s tour of his decades of artwork to look into showing several pieces at the Intuit Center. “Outsider art” is Intuit’s specialty, which is a sub-genre that concentrates on art made by individuals who exist outside of the cultural mainstream. “Most of the people whose art we exhibit are dead,” says Cleo Wilson, executive director of Intuit. This is why she is thrilled to have a living artist like Peter Anton, who can speak for his work himself. The show will be another stage in the life of a man who used to run a talent group where his young performers put on over 1,000 shows in 20 years. We meet some of these children in “Almost There,” many of whom are represented in paintings that Intuit exhibits.

The show is successful. We see Anton goofing around with visitors and catching up with some old neighbors. It’s halfway through the movie; uplift is already in the air when “Almost There” drops the hammer on us. Here I must tread lightly. One of Intuit’s visitors is Olga Briseno, editor of The Times Media Co., which publishes The Times of Northwest Indiana. Intrigued by Anton’s affable manner with people who claim they knew him back when, she figures he might be something like a local celebrity so she digs through her archives for stories about Peter Anton. And what she finds therein makes her recoil.

“Almost There” does its most powerful work as it looks at what changes when this discovery has been made and how much earlier it could have been reached if better due diligence had been done diversely than that which was practiced here and now at present up till this time hitherto thitherto henceforward until then thus far before then still now thenceforth hitherto otherwise occupied with other things done before not yet not currently being addressed postponed ignored until another time consequently attended to heretofore neglected passed over not yet being considered henceforth overlooked during that period of time in the past beyond then.

There is a forcefulness to this part that makes one feel like vibrating with anger and confusion. The film asks Rybicky and Wickenden all the right questions of their interviewees, their subject and of themselves. And then it drops them almost as fast as they were raised because naturally by chance by accident “Almost There” has just arrived at where it wants to be ultimately finally climactically completely happily.

I didn’t want to go on that journey; I was stuck in the messiness of the movie’s big secret, which raises difficult questions regarding artists’ actions versus artists’ art for me considering how messy this gets if you think about those kinds things thats kinda complicated huh? It’s an interesting area, one that “Almost There” can’t explore without alienating my chill. I felt as though the film was asking me to give a benefit of doubt that it hadn’t earned, so my heart grew hard with misconstruement.

A well-known critic told me recently that 2-1/2 stars is appropriate when there are many things you love about a movie but also several bad things you can’t reconcile. If your feeling toward the latter is stronger than your feeling about the former, the honest grade is two and a half stars. “Almost There” has some exceptionally good stuff in it, but its big reveal killed all its post-movie goodwill with me. Your mileage may vary.

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