The Red Wool Pendleton, directed by Tom Schroeder, tells a story that I think all
of us can relate to: that being the idea of one thing, no matter how minuscule it may be in
the grand scheme of our lives, carrying a large amount of meaning as the years
continue to pass us by and every minute becomes more and more precious. With age
comes experience, and with experience comes anxiety and the idea that every moment
is a moment wasted. While some people are able to manage this, the large majority of
us still struggles to find a way to grapple with the idea that time is fading and moments
are increasingly more and more fleeting. Your dad isn’t as active as he used to be. Your
favorite DVDs are becoming susceptible to disc rot. That old GameCube you used to
have is covered in dust and the controllers don’t work as well as they used to. Your
childhood dog is starting to turn grey. Things that remind us of our youth, whether or big
or small, are constantly changing, and there isn’t much we can do to stop it.
This concept of objects carrying weight and smaller, more mundane aspects of
life sticking out far more after the loss of someone was something that stuck in the back
of my mind as I watched The Red Wool Pendleton. While I, gratefully, haven’t
experienced a loss of this magnitude before, I feel like most people can relate to the
idea of smelling a hyper-specific scent and immediately getting transported to the exact
place that it reminds you of.
Another thing that I found especially interesting about this film and how it
approached its themes of nostalgia, as sweet or sick as it may be, was how it never
went out of its way to sugarcoat the nostalgia as an entirely good thing. Smaller details
like the narrator talking about remembering seeing her mom wear the coat as she got
her ears tied back paints a vivid picture of someone holding onto memories and, by
extension, unpacking some of the memories that might not be as savory. We, as
humans, seem almost hard-wired to mythologize people, and this is especially true after
the loss of someone. In my eyes, one of the most beautiful and human aspects of this
film wasn’t just how well it captured the concept of how items can hold meaning, but
also how items can hold the entire essence of a person and how you remember them,
their actions and their personality.
- Reece Pfisterer
Senior Film Student at Winona State University
