Taylor Camp (DVD)

4 stars out of 5

A friend of mine passed along Taylor Camp, an independent film. It is a stunning and beautiful evocation of the late 1960s and early 1970s, told through the prism of a short-lived community called Taylor Camp, founded by Elizabeth Taylor's brother Howard in 1969, and burned down by the state of Hawaii in 1977 for a park they never got around to building.

I will confess that, as a rule, I don't like documentaries that have no narrator. This one was an exception. The director, Robert Stone, has marshaled the voices of a  number of the surviving residents, along with vintage film and photos that I found bathed me in an era I had almost forgotten. I don't think it would have killed him to put up cards identifying the subject matter of each section, but that's a quibble, not a criticism. Also, the DVD has not chapters, which, I know, is cheaper, but makes it hard to share sections of the film with others.

I know what they say, if you can remember the 60s you weren't really there, but I was 16 the year Taylor Camp was founded, and I'm a little surprised I never heard of it before.

I asked my parents if I could take the bus from my hometown of Portland to San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, but they declined, so I probably couldn't have gotten to Hawaii the next year, even if I had know about it. Even if I had surfed. Even if I had been comfortable living in a place where clothing was optional (as best I recall myself at that age, I would not have been).

Which brings me to the only warning I would issue about this unrated film. Nudity, and lots of it. Tasteful, necessary to the "plot," organic, not intended to arouse, but it's still there

Taylor Camp is available here. You can also buy the $65 book there, or used from Amazon. If you DO remember the 60s, you'll remember them again, fondly or not, after watching this film.