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Four years ago, Tom Haslett left his job as a dairy farmer to pursue a career selling adjustable-beds. He was attracted to the profession, he says, because he "wanted to help people a bit." Now, he's one of his company's top-grossing salesmen. Hurt & Save follows Tom as he ventures into the sanctity of people's homes and bedrooms in order to demonstrate his bed's healing qualities. Along the way he's introduced to a canary by a spry widow, gets a tour of a lewd painting collection, listens to a depressed man's account of his suicide attempt, and hones his sales techniques to hilarious effect at a monthly sales meeting. Many of Tom's customers are glad to have some company but, though often eager to talk, they rarely buy. Between visits -- where he repeats his sales pitch with a sometimes poignant resolve -- he steals naps in his car and daydreams about farming. Alternately serious and bizarre, Hurt & Save gives us a fascinating portrait of a man whose work uneasily combines elements of social work with a salesmanship calculated to wrest money from people who have none to spare.
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Filmmaker Biography
Film and videomaker Julia Haslett makes expressionistic documentaries on contemporary and historical subjects. Her documentary shorts -- Hurt & Save (2001), Flooded (2003), and Eclipsed (2007) -- have screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Cinematexas, and Athens Intl Film Festival, among others. Julia is producer/director of the highly acclaimed Worlds Apart (2003) series about cultural conflicts over medical treatment, and Hold Your Breath (2005) an hour-long documentary that broadcast on PBS in 2007. She has worked at WGBH-Boston, the Discovery Channel, and as a Filmmaker-in-Residence at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. Born in London, England, Julia studied at Swarthmore College and Boston University. Now a resident of New York City, she is currently editing An Interview with Simone Weil, a long format creative documentary inspired by French thinker and labor activist Simone Weil. In 2005, she received a MacDowell Colony fellowship to support that work.
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