Though the list of editors who have become noted directors is relatively short – David Lean, Robert Wise, Hal Ashby – it can be argued that the two arts are barely separable. Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles thought so, and either edited their films themselves where union rules permitted, or masterminded the process. The Coen Brothers famously edit their own films but credit the pseudonymous ‘Roderick Jaynes’. Still, a skill for cutting doesn’t guarantee an affinity with actors or atmosphere. Directing at feature length for the first time here, David Lynch’s long-time editor, producer and ex-partner Mary Sweeney proves herself extraordinarily adept with both. Given that she has exerted key creative influence upon one of cinema’s most idiosyncratic bodies of work, one might expect Sweeney’s directorial output to replicate ‘Lynchian’ stylistic tropes. Baraboo does, in its slow pace and quiet smalltown setting, recall The Straight Story (1999) – though as Sweeney wrote that one, perhaps we should now conclude instead that Lynch’s work was ‘Sweeneyan’! But the more histrionic end of Lynch’s emotional spectrum is conspicuous by its absence here. Sweeney is interested in her characters as feeling humans, not – as they might be in the Lynch version – helpless vessels for demonic forces at play. Named after its smalltown Wisconsin setting, Baraboo serenely circles the lives of a few inhabitants, chiefly Jane (Brenda DeVita) and her troubled teen son Chris (Harry Loeffler-Bell). Chris’ adolescent rage, Jane’s nascent passion for neighbour Bob (Peter Morse), poignant/funny feuds between ancient locals and the distant spectre of war indicate the fierce human passions that burn under the surface of smalltown respectability. In elegantly-formed vignettes that are sometimes funny, sometimes painfully revealing, Sweeney proves herself a master of the subtleties of communication, who can switch the atmosphere of a scene with the smallest shift in tension. The mood between Jane and Bob flips from flirtatious to chilly with one misjudged aside; later, from a simple encounter with a woman who pulls up at her gas station, we’re able to intuit a version of Jane’s marital history that might account for her closed-off selfpossession. With its discovery of high drama in the most delicate moments of interaction, and its ability to acknowledge its characters’ quirks without the slightest condescension, Baraboo seems to belong to a tradition more literary than filmic: specifically the classic short stories of Sherwood Anderson. That said, Shana Hagan’s stunning HD cinematography and the delicate score of guitar refrains render Baraboo a fully cinematic experience – one that unquestionably heralds a significant new directorial talent.