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Errol Morris’s follow-up to his GATES OF HEAVEN is even more enigmatic than that classic documentary. The origin of this film defers depending on what you read. He went to Vernon to develop a film about retirement communities and/or people who cut off limbs for insurance money. Whether the eccentrics he found were more interesting than the retirees or his life was threatened by the “Nub City” scammers, he ended up with this film that means something different to everyone or even every time you see it.

At under an hour, the film is brisk. It’s simply a collection of eccentrics from the town of Vernon. Some have developed unique philosophies on life based on lifelong observations and others have based ideas on misinterpreted facts. One man believes that when you have all four “balls” of the brain working at the same time you can do four separate actions at the same time. A very earnest couple take an interesting idea away from their trip to the desert where they were told that one dune (pronounced done) grows 14 feet per year.

If there is a main character in the film, it would be the obsessed turkey hunter. He seems interested in only one thing – getting into the mind of turkeys. During interviews in the woods, he will be talking and then instantly stop and dart his head toward a sound in the distance – “Hear that?” he says. He has the feet and tails mounted on plaques on his porch. He relates the stories of each kill like war stories that happened just yesterday.

The supporting cast is filled with aged good ole boys like the brain philosopher. Another old timer with huge glasses keeps a turtle and possum in a pen in his backyard. When he ponders what the turtle is thinking, it seems he is pondering deeper questions about life without knowing it. A man with dark-rimmed glasses, a thin-brimmed hat and cane talks in a stream of consciousness. One moment he’s talking about mirages and then its diamonds and then dew on the trees and it makes up all the same thought.

Religious philosophy comes into play as well. The brain philosopher believes that everything God has created is good, and he’s very passionate when he talks about it. Another old timer in a boat knows how to argue with the non-believer. When they say that something has “just happened,” he tells them that the “just happened” can be called God. The town preacher prays for the things he needs and if he gets them then God meant it to be. He gives a sermon about the word “therefore” that has to be heard to be believed.

Morris isn’t making fun of these people, because he simply presents them as they are. Some fare better than others. Through these interviews, we see people trying to make sense of the world around them. Just like the rest of us.

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