UNCERTAIN: An Enchanting Look At An Otherworldly Town

Uncertain is a bayou town on the Texas/Louisiana border, with a population of just ninety-four people. It’s so out of the way of anywhere that in an early scene, a town official notes, “You’ve either got to know where you’re going or be lost to find it”. Because of its position on the border, it’s historically been a haven for those wanting to evade the Louisiana law.

Most of the residents derive their income and their food from Caddo Lake, with is both figuratively and literally at the heart of Uncertain. In recent days, the lake has been overrun with an infestation of Salvinia – a weed that chokes the life out of the water, killing off the fish and all the other animals that live within. The only hope for the lake, and in turn the town, are weevils: minuscule insects that are used to destroy the toxic weed. The problem is, they need a lot of weevils to counteract the damage from the weed, and there’s no guarantee that they will be bred in time to save the lake.

Zach, Wayne and Henry

Against the backdrop of this looming disaster, the film follows three men: one young, one middle-aged, and one old.

The youngest of the men is Zach. In his early twenties, scrawny, with an endearingly pathetic beard and a semi-permanent cowboy hat, Zach lives with his cats in a rubbish-strewn house. He’s already been through a lot in his relatively short life. His mother has been committed to a mental hospital, and he has diabetes so severe that doctors don’t anticipate him seeing forty. His diabetes is exacerbated by his alcoholism.

Despite a raft of problems that would bring most people to their knees,  Zach is remarkably clear-eyed about how he’s going to improve his lot. He decides to make the cross state move from Uncertain to the much more populous Austin, and we follow him along the way.

Middle-aged Wayne is probably the character who gets the most screen time. As a younger man, he made a lot of mistakes; chief among them killing a teenager in a drunk-driving accident, for which he is still wracked with guilt. Sober now, he lives with his girlfriend, who’s also in recovery. He spends all his free time locked in a fight-to-the-death feud with a wild boar who he’s named ‘Mr. Ed’, due to his horse-sized head.

Seventy-four year old Henry has a Texan drawl so molasses thick that anytime he speaks, he’s accompanied with subtitles. Of the three men, his livelihood is most directly linked with the fate of Lake Caddo, where he works as a river guide. Like Wayne, he has done time for killing a man, though the specifics are markedly different. Henry has recently lost his wife of fifty-four years, and has since taken up with a woman decades his junior, much to the consternation of his friends and family.

Their Animal Co-Stars

While the human participants of Uncertain, a documentary by  Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands, are fascinating, it’s when the film turns to the animal kingdom that things get truly magical. From the very first scene, it’s made clear that the animals should share top-billing with Zach, Wayne and Henry. As we are taken on a night-time boat trip down Caddo Lake, we may as well be experiencing an alien planet (in fact, Caddo Lake has been the setting for many movies, a few of which are science fiction). Huge, fibrous Cypress trees grow ominously from the murky waters. Ghostly white birds with vast wing spans roost in the trees. The soundtrack is full of howls and croaks, creating an unnerving accompaniment to the eerie images.

On the infrared camera that Wayne has set up to catch his porcine nemesis, we see a dazzling array of deer, hares and raccoons, just shuffling around, completely unaware of their soon-to-be movie stardom.  The best of these infrared shots come early on, when the camera catches a whole community of wild boar (though unfortunately for Wayne, none of them are Mr. Ed), including many infants.  All lit up by the eerie glow of the night-vision camera, their eyes look particularly haunting.

Birth and Rebirth

Between the three men and the coterie of animals, Uncertain tells a richly rewarding story around the primal themes of death, birth and rebirth. Zach, Wayne and Henry have all undergone troubled, traumatic pasts, and the film is about their attempts to conquer them, and move forward, beginning new lives – Zach in his move to Austin, Henry in his relationship with a younger woman, and Wayne in reigniting his love of hunting that had been forgotten during his addiction.

That Wayne’s rebirth depends on the death of Mr. Ed, the boar, underlines the theme even further. Yet, it’s Uncertain‘s smallest animals that give a new life to Caddo Lake and therefore its residents. There surely can’t be many films where you can call insects the heroes (beyond A Bug’s Life and Antz!), and yet it’s the tiny little weevils that save the day. “My Weevils are kicking ass!” says a scientist in the film’s final scene, before charmingly apologizing for his mild profanity. And as we watch the miraculous creatures scuttle around under the microscope, the weevils seem just as important to the planet as Zach, Wayne and Henry – and Mr. Ed.

It makes you feel both very big and very small.

You Must See This Film

What Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands have created in Uncertain is something truly special. To call the film atmospheric is to do it a grave injustice. The co-directors don’t just recreate the atmosphere of the tiny Texan town, they transport you there. When I looked out my window after finishing the film, I was disappointed to see a suburban street instead of majestic cypress trees and Lake Caddo flowing past.

With enormous themes illustrated with the tiniest of creatures, the most characterful of characters, and some stunning photography, this is a phenomenal debut. I cannot recommend this beautiful, moving, funny, strange, magical and uplifting film highly enough.

Have you seen any films set on Caddo Lake? Tell us in the comments below!

Uncertain will have a limited release in the U.S. on March 9. For all release dates, see here.