My America The Day's Mail (2012) Online

The first two films in this series were quite direct towards the camera in their presentation, connecting directly to the viewer as a piece of writing or thought; this film on the other hand shows us a small scene as a man reads a letter that has come in the post along with a suit. The suit, we learn from the letter, has been handed down and across through six generations of this family, helping people who needed it for weddings, funerals, job-interviews or anything else where a good suit would be required. It is a way of delivering the story as the new recipient learns of this history at the same time as the viewer.

The piece is simple as it is essentially a letter being read out, but with the other letters which remain with the suit and with the context they add, we understand this is a piece about the families coming to America, about the spirit of communities and families to support one another with whatever little they have – they will all make it for the same reasons that even one of them does, or they will fail in the same way. The move to more of a drama piece was a sudden shift after the first two films, but it worked well by not directly connecting to the viewer but rather letting us sit to one side and take it in and understand it.

The delivery from the actor is a little limited by the manner of delivery, since he is basically just reading on camera. He has scope to react to the words he reads or to give his own style on them, but really he cannot be a character so much as just being the guy in the suit reading the most recent letter. It is a less direct approach and perhaps less impacting than the first two films, but it works and I enjoyed it for its own style and the simple and unassuming way which it made a bigger point, even if it did feel a smaller film for it.