The Town That Was (2006)

The Town That Was by Chris Perkal & Georgie Roland (2006)




First things first – this is NOT one of those documentaries that comes out of nowhere. You know the kind – the film that does the festival circuit for 2 years before getting picked up by Paramount and released and makes $24 million on opening weekend. This is the documentary you watch because you’re interested in the subject. I have to admit, I knew quite a bit about this doc before I rented it. So, I’m guessing that anybody looking to watch this would also be well versed on the subject.

The Plot (SPOILERS): For those not in the know, this doc is about a town known as Centralia, in Pennsylvania. The town has been burning from underground for the past 45 or so years. Basically, back in the day (long before the environmentalists took over the world), the town would actually burn the garbage dumps on Memorial Day Weekend as a way to get more space for more garbage, and for another ritualistic fire to take place the following year. Well, in 1962, they lit the fire and didn’t put it out. Despite the fact that the town exists solely due to the coal mines located directly beneath the garbage dumps, the towns officials were apparently surprised and flabbergasted when they realized that coal is FLAMMABLE. Yea, I know. I was speechless also. After a little bit of research, they learned that ¾ of the world’s natural coal is located beneath….you got it- Pennsylvania. So basically, this underground fire is going to burn forever. The film goes into all of the political and financial chaos that stems from a town being on fire for 40-something years. I guess the government didn’t want to spend the money (big surprise there) to put the fire out, so they paid for an evacuation. The evacuation wasn’t mandatory, so people left very slowly. Today, only 11 people live in the town. The film jumps back and forth between archival news footage from pre-fire, and interviews with the people that still live in the town, and the few people still alive that left.

Cinematography: It’s a freaking documentary. Not a Spielberg film. IMDB tells me that the movie was shot over 4 years by a 3-man crew. Nothing exciting here.

Was It Good?: Well, I’m not sure. It didn’t tell me anything that I couldn’t read for myself on wikipedia. There wasn’t really any emotion behind it. It seemed like even the people still living in Centralia didn’t really give a shit about the town. The filmmakers tried to mess with your emotions by telling the story of Todd Bumbowski (a young boy who fell into his grandmother’s yard when it collapsed due to the fire raging underneath it), and by interviewing the 92-year-old mayor. Watch it if you find the subject interesting, I guess. I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I’ve enjoyed similarly themed documentaries. This could have been an hour long special on the History Channel and I wouldn’t have known the difference.