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    Filmmaker Brings Off-the-Grid Doc Bunker to the Wex

    Men across the American Midwest are living in decommissioned nuclear silos and underground bunkers. Not all of them, but enough of them that filmmaker and artist Jenny Perlin made a fascinating documentary about them called Bunker.

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    Perlin accompanies the film to the Wexner Center for the Arts on Tuesday, March 28 for its Ohio premiere. Having grown up in Ohio and having a long and valued relationship with the Wex who helped her with postproduction on the documentary, Perlin is eager to visit and share her work.

    Jenny Perlin

    Growing up in southwestern Ohio, a lot of the things that I thought were really beautiful – bucolic landscapes, places where we would chop down our Christmas tree, places out in the cornfields or even places near my high school – turned out to have been former uranium processing plants or missile silos hidden under the cornfields. All these things that had been Cold War infrastructure were still in use at the time because this was the 80s. So, I was interested in that and have been interested in Cold War histories and infrastructure for a long time.

    But the real catalyst came around 2016 when, living in Brooklyn, there was a lot of criticism about the Midwest, let’s just put it that way. It made me really curious to go back to areas that I had been familiar with and beyond and combine my interest in seeing what’s going on in the Midwest with my long-standing interest in Cold War infrastructure and the businesses around new bunker construction.

    Columbus Underground

    How did you get the subjects to participate?

    JP: Everybody wanted to vet me by phone and check me out. But eventually they agreed. There’s a couple reasons. One is when I contact people, I’m really friendly, right? I use my Ohio skill set for that. And also, because I’m coming as an artist and not as a journalist or a TV crew or somebody that, iit doesn’t take long for the subjects to understand that I’m not coming in to make fun of them or mock their life decisions.

    Another reason people agreed is that many of these people had had a lot of media coverage, some of which they were happy with, some of which they were not happy with. But people want to tell their stories. They just do. And so, they told it to me.

    CU: You began filming long before the pandemic. How did Covid affect the project?

    JP: The preparations for any kind of what they term “threat scenario” are pretty wide. Everybody has their own particular threat scenario they’re most invested in. But they also want to be able to cover a lot of things, including epidemics and so on. For the most part, people who are involved in this business really didn’t pay much attention to COVID. They did not think it was a big deal because they are waiting for something much bigger.

    CU: Were you nervous to go out to these isolated bunkers?

    JP: I was a bit concerned at first because I go to these places by myself and I’m just a nice little middle aged, small woman. I have a really simple camera and audio setup and I spend a lot of time, like days, either living there or coming back and forth.

    I did get scared, usually right as I was driving to wherever it was, because that’s when the landscape and remoteness of America – I hadn’t been to the southwest corner of South Dakota. It’s vast. And Kansas is so beautiful, but I’m driving on these former military roads that are all trashed because they’re decommissioned. And I’m like, wow, I’m really isolated and there’s no cell service. And that’s when I was a bit nervous.

    CU: Were the people living in these bunkers as you expected them to be?

    JP: What was interesting to me is that everybody came at this from a different set of motivations, and their backstories were all quite unique. Strangely enough, most of the people I talked to characterize this way of life as a kind of freedom from something. And I think that really plays into a kind of fantasy about America that involves staking your claim, circling the wagons and protecting yourself and your family and being free that way. So, there’s that kind of Western expansionist story that permeates a lot of these narratives, even though you could see each one as having maybe not achieved exactly what it wanted to.

    The people living in these spaces are full of love and desire for community, I have to say. The desire for community, every single one of them expressed. And yet that did not turn out for them. I mean, they were all very isolated.

    I didn’t meet any women. There were palpable absences of women. Each one of these people, their primary heterosexual relationship failed because of the bunker. It represents a certain kind of crisis about American masculinity writ large.

    It also deals with a kind of economic crisis and finding or salvaging things that are in the landscape already, kind of a DIY way of life for many people, Although, extremely wealthy people have had unbelievable luxury bunkers built like the kinds that I could not access and the likes of which we probably can’t even imagine.

    CU: What surprised you most?

    JP: What I learned the most is how much can change in such a short time. For example, when I started the project, one of the things that had affected New York where I live so strongly was Hurricane Sandy. I thought, well, if there’ll be another hurricane, maybe I should get some candles or some waterproof matches. So, I got that stuff and then COVID came, right? So, I learned that you can’t prepare for every possible disaster. What seems most important to me and that hasn’t changed but feels more profound is community, the importance of people in your life. That’s really the hardest thing to see for me when I look back at the film is how isolated and fearful so many people are.

    CU: Are you glad to be back at the Wexner Center?

    JP: Yes.The Wex has been a godsend to me for 20 years, actually. I did editing on one of my first films there. And then during COVID, they so graciously provided me with a digital residency.

    I’ll be doing a couple of other talks at OSU, at the Mershon Center and in a visual arts class as well, because I also have an active practice as a visual artist. I make animations, I make drawings and installations, so I’ll be talking about that at OSU in other contexts. And then I’ll be introducing and doing a Q&A for Bunker at 7 p.m. on Monday, and I can’t wait to come back home.

    Bunker screens at the Wexner Center for the Arts at 7 pm on Tuesday, March 28. Perlin will introduce the film and stay for a Q&A after the screening. For tickets and additional information visit wexarts.org.

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    Hope Madden
    Hope Maddenhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Hope Madden is a freelance contributor on Columbus Underground who covers the independent film scene, writes film reviews and previews film events.
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