still/here (2001)

In this austere and sorrowful portrait of his hometown, St. Louis, Harris sets his black-and-white 16mm camera loose to wander through the city’s decaying northside neighborhoods, an area populated almost exclusively by working class and working poor African Americans. Gliding down empty streets, across the facades of once-elegant homes, entering condemned buildings, the camera makes a detached but ultimately damning portrait of civic neglect and apathy. Poignantly, human beings are rarely encountered; their presence haunts the soundtrack of eerie footsteps, an unanswered telephone, and sparse voiceover commentary from found sources.