An American Pastoral

In the United States, many smaller public office positions are decided through local elections. One of these positions is a membership on the school board, a board that decides on educational policies at a local level. In recent years, US conservatives have made use of the incredibly low voting turnouts of local elections to win spots on these school boards – the low turnout guarantees that any candidate who can mobilise even a relatively small number of voters has a good chance of winning.

An American Pastoral follows local school board elections in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where local conservative Christians are running a campaign to take over the board. Their top priority is to remove literary classics from school libraries on account of their alleged inappropriate sexual content.

The film observes the election process through many different angles. It follows both the conservatives as well as their opponents, liberals who are against the censorship of books. In some of the most affecting scenes of the film, aging liberals attempt to defend themselves while Christians openly and aggressively accuse them of serving the Devil.

An American Pastoral tells a local tale with far wider-reaching implications. It depicts the struggle of people living in a democracy trying to fight against extreme ideologies.

Juhana Pettersson (translated by Sofia Lanki)