Any farmer donning a Dr. Seuss hat, glitter enhanced dress, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert styled frock when mounting his tracker is going to cause a stir in his community--especially when located in rural Illinois. Couple this with opening images of this farmer literally tasting his soil for acidity and declaring that he is "different" with a voice somewhat like Truman Capote's, and the audience is prepared for another cinematic treatise about how a gay man copes with a conservative community. In reality, that's not the case in The Real Dirt on Farmer John, which compellingly mixes humor and pathos in its heartfelt account--a personal journey that also stands as homage to a severely threatened American lifestyle and offers hope.

What makes the film especially poignant are the numerous home movie sequences, made possible when John Peterson's mother used a Super-8 movie camera to preserve family moments beginning in the 1950's. Back then most families used these to record first baby steps, birthdays, Christmases, and other "special" moments, but Mrs. Peterson collected "ordinary" daily activities that are true Americana. The days of the family farm are nearly extinct, yet this film illustrates their essential spirit through Peterson's narrative.

An aspiring writer, Peterson pens the words and narrates them. He likely spawned the idea for the documentary himself or embraced Taggart Siegel's concept twenty years ago when the director first began filming the quirky farmer in his element. When growing up, Peterson looked very much like any ordinary Midwestern boy. But coming of age in the sixties and forced to take over the farm after the untimely death of his father, Peterson harbored an artistic mindset along with his love of farming. After enrolling in nearby Beloit College (just across the Illinois-Wisconsin border), Peterson quickly fell in with hippies and other aspiring counter-culture youth who wanted to become "one with the land."

Here's a 21-year old who has his own 350-acre farm just 8 miles away, so the inevitable happens. A log cabin becomes a place for meditation while the barn and environs is transformed into combination artist colony/hippie commune. Of course the locals begin talking, and it's no surprise that rumors about Peterson's weirdness evolve to the point that some believe ritualistic devil worship and cult killings are taking place.

The family farm concept was already being threatened severely in the seventies, as indebted farmers had to sell off their land and auction their equipment--giving way to huge corporate farms and to real estate developers. Peterson represents a microcosm of this pattern, as archive black and white footage shows his melancholy countenance at his farm's auction. To pay off the debts, he's forced to sell all but 22 of the family's acreage, and he heads for one of several trips to Mexico to cope with depression and find himself. He blames himself for the farm's failure, and one of his sisters actually agrees with that. But you won't see his mother placing fault.

Highly tolerant, positive, resilient, and energetic, Mrs. Peterson is the real heroine of the documentary. It's due to her that John returns to give farming another try, and it's because of her that he continues farming after reaching another wall with organic farming. After all, if he stopped growing vegetables, what would she do? Selling tomatoes, melons, onions, and squash gave her joy. And that leads to the miracle of Angelic Organics and a new way of farming that fits Peterson's temperament remarkably, offering a new hope for farmers that want to preserve their threatened lifestyle.

That said, it still must be emphasized that John Peterson just isn't your ordinary farmer. It takes creativity to do what he's done to hold on to and expand the Peterson farm to its former glory. Likewise, his artistic temperament is what makes this remarkable documentary possible. But that still would have never happened had it not been for his courageous mother--a former schoolteacher who steadfastly believed in their lifestyle and was determined to preserve it on Super-8 film for all time. She provided the original spark for counter-culture in her household that lead to The Real Dirt on Farmer John. How many 83-year olds do you know that like Jim Morrison?