Gerry (Gus Van Sant)
[Click here for the complete Top Ten.]
Huh. 11 days into the blog, and I'm starting to run out of steam. Well, perhaps that's not completely true; I think I can muster up something interesting for Irréversible and for the 29 (!) DVDs I managed to get over the holiday. But I haven't seen Gerry since January of last year, and I've only seen it once, and I just can't think of anything to say that hasn't been said better.
If you've never seen it (or even heard of it), Gerry is the story of two guys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), both seemingly named Gerry, and what happens when they get lost in the mountains. It's slow. Very little "happens" in the conventional story sense.
Why #1? Well, if you're willing to give into it (which may be difficult to do on video), it's hypnotic. The entire thing is consists of bravura camera work: the tracking shot that follows Damon and Affleck getting lost, almost like a third person goading them into their fate; the extreme close-up of the Gerries as they hike further into the void, their faces bouncing madly up and down; the shot near the end, what must be a near-ten minute take, of Damon trudging, step by step, through the salt flats, with Afflect mimicking every step, as the sun slowly rises in front of them.
But I named this movie #1 not just because it's an amazing achievement in cinematography, yet I'm having difficulty expressing what exactly I liked about it. I'm not comfortable using words like "existential", and it's a word that gets used a lot in discussions about this film. But there is something very strong and primal about it's construction and presentation, and in the way it strips away with the normal artifices of storytelling. In other words, it's an experience, not entertainment in the usual sense, and while I know Gerry isn't the first film like this, it's certainly one of my favorites.
(Here's where I make the obligatory reference to Béla Tarr, the incredible Hungarian director that Gus Van Sant was inspired by [some would say completely stole from], and whose Werckmeister Harmonies is worth finding.)
This probably sounds like a back-handed compliment, and isn't intended as one, but here goes: Gerry is the art movie you can take home to your parents. Seriously. It's got a name actor, amazing landscapes (Argentina and Death Valley, CA), and a very basic story (two guys get lost in the wilderness). If you can introduce your family members to this, it might be a gateway drug to Béla Tarr or Andrei Tarkovsky. And then the revolution can begin.
EDIT: If I'd known that all it would take for the Eagles to beat the Packers was for me to finally post on Gerry, then, crap, I woulda done it sooner.
Where we saw it: film | We deign to rate it: outta 100