I love having an unexpected film experience. James Benning gives us an alphabetical tour of the states, territories and districts of the USA that is part meditation and part lexophile’s delight with a paraprosdokian sting in the tail (look it up).

You’ll only see a film like this at a festival. It is constructed of 52 two-minute static clips showing each state in order from Alabama to Wyoming. Filmed during the pandemic, it is largely empty of people but full of the evidence of their presence. Like Kiarostami’s 24 Frames, you find yourself sinking into a meditation where you examine the frame, consider the diversity and vastness of a single country, allow your mind to drift and try to guess what the next state will be (I missed 8).

The sound is largely diagetic and sparse, sometimes hinting at what is off-screen as we hear a jet fly overhead or a car pass by. Benning also gives us some reprieve by playing a relevant speech about a key social issue or some music as if it might be spilling from a window or in the mind of the filmmaker or a passer by.

There is a lot of time to think. About the number of US states that start with the letters M and N (around 30%), about how you might make a film like this about Australia, about the beauty of wind through a flag. There are even a few surprises – realising that what is under the bridge (above) are not parked cars but people sleeping rough, expecting Fargo frozen emptiness but getting a mine.

I can’t tell you how it ends as it is a beautiful and sly upending of what you’ve experienced. I loved James Benning for it and how it transformed my experience.

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Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.