Sword of Trust

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Last night I watched the adorable, yes, adorable movie Sword of Trust. Starring stand up comedian and podcaster WTF With Marc Maron Podcast, Marc Maron is a southern transplant Mel who runs a pawn shop in a small Alabama town. Marc is probably best remembered for his starring role in the
Netflix series Glow. 

Jon Bass plays Nathaniel, Mel's internet surfing pawn shop employee who does pretty much nothing, but so dang charming, you don't care and neither does Mel. In walk lesbian couple Cynthia (Jillian Bell) and Mary (Michaela Watkins) who've inherited the Maltese Falcon sword that really won the Civil War in the south's favor.

What got me right off were my own pre-conceptions. I know a ton of people from Alabama who aren't the cool Muscle Shoals crowd if you know what I mean. This little film upsets your notions in a quiet way, over and over.

Sword of Trust employs a great indy filmmaking trick. It's a character study that rides the line very carefully between documentary and narrative. The characters seem real real. And, that's not easy to do. Good writing and editing help, but the actors have to be in on the joke. I was immediately reminded of one of my favorite all time movies and/or docs Sherman's March where this Boston college guy gets a big grant to make a historical film about William Tecumseh Sherman in the deep south, but ends up making an unbelievably cool freak show
about residents of the deep south.

Enter a parade of supporting actors, most namely Halt and Catch Fire's Toby Huss as a Southern nationalist Hog Jaws who are all trying to get their hands on the sword and win that old war once and for all. If you haven't read Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz's book on Civil War reenactors, you ort to. I might just have to go back for another look see. Sword of Trust sandwiches in that groove without ever once going over the top. It's hard not to fall
into that exaggeration with such a compelling subject. You gotta watch out.

The cinematography of the colorful little town with nice saturated kodachrome-looking frames almost make you wish you were there with 'em, or at least transport your head to another place for a while. Isn't that what a good movie is supposed to do? Time plays a role in this little feature with the very quietly placed mannequin heads and painted subjects in the pawn shop artwork looking out, watching. The pawn shop, like most, is filled up with lots of guitars and broken dreams, so that drone of unplugged electric pawn shop guitar riffs is a nice and brilliant touch to this worth-seeing movie.

Fuck You I'm From Austin Film Talk gives this nice movie five fucking stars. Since the town of Austin is all filled up with blockbusters and all the rooms that used to show movies like this are gone bye bye, you got to drive to Dripping Springs to see Sword of Trust in the theater at Sky Cinemas. Also available for streaming:

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