It was only a matter of time
before documentarians started borrowing the "how one small item affects
everything" model from the non-fiction bestseller list. Hartmut Bitomsky's Dust makes a pensive study of the
title particulate, considering the way we wage a never-ending battle with the
tiny specks that gather around us. Bitomsky interviews art-restorers who clean
the dust off antique sculptures, dealing with the sick feeling that their
efforts are altering the art ever so slightly. He talks to a Dust Bowl
historian, and a housewife who's fanatical about cleaning. And he even lets the
dust-lovers have their say, hearing out one woman who collects dust bunnies,
because she's fascinated by the idea that dust creates its own mini-sculptures
out of what we shed. ("The dust in our home is like an archive," she says with
a twinkle.)
Though Dust relies on the standard
documentary mix of talking heads and narration, Bitomsky also breaks up the
chatter with artful montages and eye-popping extreme close-ups, capturing the
accidental beauty of waste and decay. At times, Dust is a little like one of those
basic-cable shows that reveal how things are made, as Bitomsky hangs out in
laboratories and factories, watching paint-mixing or scientists studying
plants. At other times, Dust is more probative, as Bitomsky considers the dangers
of radioactivity, or what happened to the New Yorkers who inhaled the dust of
the wreckage on 9/11. And while Dust is too shapeless, and often a little dry—no pun
intended—it's frequently striking. When Bitomsky appreciates the
complexity of dust clumps, or watches what happens when a piece of celluloid
film goes uncleaned, he makes his fascination with invisible clouds of matter
clear and compelling. At the least, he makes documentary fans appreciate being
in the hands of a filmmaker with a good eye and a unique point of view, rather
than being stuck with another cheerless agit-prop doc.