From John Marks. Originally posted at his Purple State of Mind Blog.

In the right light, ordinary things shine so beautifully. Aim the camera lens at a trailer park, for instance, and you’d be amazed at what emerges.

In Unhitched, my favorite of the Windrider Films so far, Erin Hudson and Ben Wu offer 12 minutes in the Faerie Ring Campground & RV Park on the Russian River in northern California. It’s one of the most beautiful corners of the United States, but Hudson and Wu don’t dwell much on the wonders of the scenery. They capture instead fleeting glimpses of texture in the scraped sides of old and rusted trailers, the underbellies of things, the thrown-together flower pots and bits of decorative filigree that might go otherwise unnoticed.

The film has a special poignancy in our own era, as so many people lose their homes, but Unhitched isn’t heavy-handed in its message. We understand that the inhabitants of the trailer park live in the gray space between home and homelessness, but Hudson and Wu don’t milk the scenario for bathos. The subjects tell us about their plight, but don’t plead much for our sympathy.

The images do the heavy-lifting, giving us a slice of desperate life and quiet grace in a hidden corner of America before departing back into darkness—literally.

Spend a few minutes with Unhitched here.