Plot

On a solo journey to through the American south to meet reclusive musician Cast King, photographer Kathryn McCool attempts to find the America she had, as a youth, re-created and photographed in her own backyard in rural New Zealand. Comparing what she finds with what was for so long imagined, Sand Mountain is an essay about a strange homecoming of sorts.—Anonymous

Sand Mountain is a reflection of the filmmaker's attraction to a region that until recently she has only journeyed to via the images of popular culture. From the opening narration and accompanying photographic stills we see the attempt to recreate something of the iconography of America's South in 1980's New Zealand, the place of her childhood. This longstanding romantic idealization informs her camera as she travels alone, simultaneously driving and taking footage, passing through small towns en route to Sand Mountain to see the reclusive country music legend JD 'Cast' King.

The meeting with 'Cast' King offers a portrait of this long retired, somewhat exploited figure, yet is every much an attempt to locate and connect with the essence of the South, it's musical heritage, it's people. To this end the film is every bit as interested in the sublime and sometimes eccentric portraits of the people that are encountered on the way, and the camera is always attuned to an iconographic America; The diners, motels, gas stations, kids on the 'block'.

Ultimately the film is conveying nothing specifically, but what appears in the midst of this generous silence are moments of emotion - of sadness, loss, resignation, resilience and pride as they are merely witnessed by the filmmaker and under the weight of reality, the filmmakers 'daydream' begin to fade, America is contextualised against something bigger than the myth of popular culture. There is no sense of loss, just a beautiful, melancholic Southern soundtrack.