It’s hard to imagine a Vermont-ier documentary than Charles Light’s homegrown phenomenon Far Out: Life on & After the Commune. The local filmmaker’s feature drew a crowd of more than 550 to its premiere at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro and played there for more than a month.
Winner of Best New England Feature at Massachusetts’ Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, Far Out chronicles the 50-year history of sister communes Packer Corners in Guilford, Vt., and Montague Farm in Montague, Mass. On Thursday, January 16, the doc lands at Essex Cinemas with a 7 p.m. screening featuring a Q&A with Light, longtime Packer Corners resident and poet Verandah Porche, and soundtrack composer and performer Patty Carpenter. A weeklong run at the Essex will follow, beginning on January 24.
The deal
Far Out sets the scene with vintage news footage of protests against the Vietnam War, when the counterculture first exploded into mainstream consciousness. Then Light zeroes in on Liberation News Service, an underground journalism outfit whose founders, Marshall Bloom and Ray Mungo, relocated in 1968 from the radical hotbed of New York City to the pastoral wilds of Vermont and western Massachusetts. Fleeing the fallout of an ideological schism that escalated to a violent standoff, the activist-journalists started two communes and went back to the land.
In interviews, commune members reminisce about how they made connections in their new communities and learned the skills they needed to survive off the grid, milking cows and plowing fields. Bloom’s 1969 suicide was a dark moment in the Montague commune’s early history. But in the 1970s, its members rallied around high-profile antinuclear protests, defeating a proposed Montague plant and organizing a massive action against one in Seabrook, N.H. Their efforts eventually produced a 1979 No Nukes concert and rally in New York City featuring stars such as Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt.
Meanwhile, the Packer Corners farm staged open-air theatrical spectacles, bringing Shakespeare to new- and old-school Vermonters alike. Many of the commune members and their offspring became active in Vermont politics and culture, helping to change the public image and the whole fabric of the state.
Will you like it?
In the 1970s, I was a kid with an idealistic parent who gravitated toward communal living. The places where we sojourned were too rule-bound to be idyllic, and I never quite took to daily 5 a.m. chapel or being known as an “EG,” which stood for “emerging generation.”
Those memories made it tougher to join wholeheartedly in the celebration of commune life that Far Out represents, with its twangy score and those-were-the-days vibe. But I have to say, the film’s joy is infectious. The members of Montague and Packer Corners come off as a personable, articulate bunch. The elfish Mungo, who wrote a book about commune living that Robert Redford optioned for film, exemplifies a playful humor that livens much of the documentary.
For their era, these two communes had a sizable population of feminist women and openly gay men. Members of both groups speak candidly about the resistance they encountered even within their chosen radical communities. The kids get a voice, too, noting that they were on the front lines of commune-town relations in the public schools.
Part of the group in its heyday, Light chronicled the communes’ everyday life and antinuclear efforts with coproducer and cinematographer Daniel Keller. Their footage became part of the wealth of archival material on which Light drew for Far Out, which also includes contributions from longtime local filmmakers Alan Dater and Nora Jacobson.
The result is an absorbing historical tapestry. As the documentary skips around in time, we see commune members such as Porche in exuberant youth, in middle age and, more recently, looking back wryly on their younger selves.
In an interview with Brattleboro Community Television, Light said that “What I tried to accomplish in editing was to present as honest a picture as I could,” rather than succumb to boomer nostalgia. Far Out is much more interesting for it.
The doc reminds us what was so counter about the counterculture — not just the politics or the macho feats of activism (one member describes toppling a weather tower on a planned nuke site) but the insistence on rethinking and questioning everything. Far Out has an energy that could inspire young activists despondent about the current state of American institutions to do some community building of their own.
If you like this, try more local films…
The Farm Boy (2023): Filmmaker George Woodard shot most of this World War II story, about a young man who ships off right after his wedding, in black and white on his farm in Waterbury Center. This month’s screenings commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, with partial proceeds benefi ting a veterans’ organization. Catch it on Sunday, January 19, at Montpelier’s Savoy Theater; and on Saturday, January 25, at the Essex Cinemas, both at 1 p.m.
The Yorkie Werewolf (2024): For something a little more comic and campy, try Vermonter Michael DiBiasio- Ornelas’ locally shot horror flick about a teen witch caught in a paranormal mob war. See it on Tuesday, January 21, 7 p.m., at the Welden Theater in St. Albans; Friday, January 24, 6 p.m., at the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery in Brattleboro; or Sunday, January 26, 3 p.m., at the Vermont International Film Foundation Screening Room in Burlington. It’s also rentable on VOD.
This article appears in The Wellness Issue 2025.
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