Movie Blog: Greetings From 'LaPorte'

Among the reasons to love the Trylon Microcinema is their series of Tuesday Premieres, which twice a month brings new features to Twin Cities screens that may have otherwise fallen through the cracks.

Tonight, the Trylon presents LaPorte, Indiana, a lovely little gem about a hardly ideal but still plenty idyllic community whose residents only seem to realize what they have after they've either been there for a long while or have been away for even longer and long to return.

Helmed by This American Life veteran Joe Beshenkovsky and shot attractively by Jeremy Gould, LaPorte frames its portrait ... well, within the work of a portrait photographer.

The tens of thousands of picture proofs that were found in what had been the Muralcraft Studios inform not just the direction of the interview subjects Beshenkovsky pursues, but also serve as a counterpoint to the goings on throughout the still thriving town. Photos of young couples in horn-rimmed glasses are held against video of neo-aught teens getting through their high school years, all while being cared for by the people who once looked so fresh-faced in those black-and-white proofs.

LaPorte doesn't dwell on the past or even begin to suggest that the town's glory days are in the past. Instead, it suggests the patterns of life that repeat themselves, and does so without managing to draw too many condescending parallels.

LaPorte shows tonight only at 7 and 8:30 p.m.

Eric Henderson is a web producer and film blogger for WCCO.COM.