Post by Capo on Mar 27, 2008 20:55:27 GMT
Old Joy
Kelly Reichardt | 2006 | USA
When he receives a call from an old friend, a married man agrees to go on a road trip to a spot in the country.
At once unsettling and beautiful, the former because of its total lack of exposition or flashback, its minimal dialogue and lingering, observational camera, the latter because of the liberation such an approach offers this portrayal of male bonding. At the core, here, we have two men, once close and now leading very different lives - the conservative restrained by married life and the freer if more regretful friend, whose nostalgia borders throughout on both admiration (for the other's success) and bitter remorse (for his own shortcomings). It's a tranquil road trip which moves along to an immersive soundtrack, over images of passing scenery (from industrial greys of the town to striking greens of the forest and blues of the sky); its penultimate scene, one of extreme repose, has an ambiguous, unsettling air before a final move into liberated relieve: a surprise massage, and the simple image of a wedding finger slipping into water: accepting and at ease.
I liked it very much: it's the sort of film I'd like to make myself; the music was lush, reminding me somewhat of placid Mogwai. I love passing scenery in itself, as in the likes of Paris, Texas and The Brown Bunny; I've never been to America, but there's a tone evoked by these types of sequences that engross me very much.
I also think it's quite a clever and brave (liberating, as I seem to keep saying) decision to develop the narrative as it does. It's ambiguous, of course, but any reaction in the viewer is entirely because of what he or she brings into the film; the cut-aways to flowing water after Mark's hand slips into the water might rise eyebrows, but I found them beautiful - whatever was happening seemed natural, a thing of beauty, of nature. And this isn't implied homosexuality, for me: we're past the Hays Code, you don't need to cut to a vertical feature or waves crashing when some sexual passion is hinted at. This is more mature than that; and the subtle, subdued way in which that scene develops (in line with the rest of the film) is profound, something I related to greatly. In fact, I think it invoked in me a sense of shame; that I had even approached these guys' relationship as anything beyond platonic... though I'd argue that sense of sexuality is still there, even if it's repressed and never comes to fruition, as I suppose it is in all human bonds.
What did you guys make of the final moments? They made sense, in that they didn't seem out of place, but their meaning (as seems to be the point) elude me.
Kelly Reichardt | 2006 | USA
When he receives a call from an old friend, a married man agrees to go on a road trip to a spot in the country.
At once unsettling and beautiful, the former because of its total lack of exposition or flashback, its minimal dialogue and lingering, observational camera, the latter because of the liberation such an approach offers this portrayal of male bonding. At the core, here, we have two men, once close and now leading very different lives - the conservative restrained by married life and the freer if more regretful friend, whose nostalgia borders throughout on both admiration (for the other's success) and bitter remorse (for his own shortcomings). It's a tranquil road trip which moves along to an immersive soundtrack, over images of passing scenery (from industrial greys of the town to striking greens of the forest and blues of the sky); its penultimate scene, one of extreme repose, has an ambiguous, unsettling air before a final move into liberated relieve: a surprise massage, and the simple image of a wedding finger slipping into water: accepting and at ease.
I liked it very much: it's the sort of film I'd like to make myself; the music was lush, reminding me somewhat of placid Mogwai. I love passing scenery in itself, as in the likes of Paris, Texas and The Brown Bunny; I've never been to America, but there's a tone evoked by these types of sequences that engross me very much.
I also think it's quite a clever and brave (liberating, as I seem to keep saying) decision to develop the narrative as it does. It's ambiguous, of course, but any reaction in the viewer is entirely because of what he or she brings into the film; the cut-aways to flowing water after Mark's hand slips into the water might rise eyebrows, but I found them beautiful - whatever was happening seemed natural, a thing of beauty, of nature. And this isn't implied homosexuality, for me: we're past the Hays Code, you don't need to cut to a vertical feature or waves crashing when some sexual passion is hinted at. This is more mature than that; and the subtle, subdued way in which that scene develops (in line with the rest of the film) is profound, something I related to greatly. In fact, I think it invoked in me a sense of shame; that I had even approached these guys' relationship as anything beyond platonic... though I'd argue that sense of sexuality is still there, even if it's repressed and never comes to fruition, as I suppose it is in all human bonds.
What did you guys make of the final moments? They made sense, in that they didn't seem out of place, but their meaning (as seems to be the point) elude me.