Land of the Lost
Two everydudes get swallowed by the void in Gus Van Sant’s Gerry
Gerry, a stark slab of lost-in-the-desert minimalism from director Gus Van Sant, may be nothing more than a story about two semi-slackers wandering off a campground’s hiking trail in search of “the thing.” But its cryptic, unforgettable pull owes everything to that po-faced simplicity, collecting mysteriousness and emotional heft out of thin air. The picture never tips into Blair Witch-like circular menace, nor does it settle for the manly sentiments of the Jack London school of dramatic survivalism. Instead we get just the facts: impassive vistas of craggy rock formations and smooth basins, two remarkably uninflected performances (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), and the occasional tinkling of Arvo Pärt’s sublime “Alina” for piano and cello.
Sound like fun? I won’t lie to you: Gerry is rigorous experimentation, its dry dusty stretches captured in long takes lasting several minutes, resulting in an undeniable lull. (Van Sant admits to falling under the spell of taxing Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr.) But like Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise—and this is probably the most conceptually brazen American feature since then—there is great absorption to be had in Van Sant’s intentional sensory deprivation, a kind of existential humor heightened by cinematographer Harris Savides’ careful eye for the unnamed wasteland, the casual shorthand of two long-acquainted actors (who co-wrote the script with Van Sant), a masterfully subtle sound design, and our own pricked-up senses surging forward to fill the maddening vacancy.
It’s nice to be able to talk about a Van Sant movie on this elevated level again, in keeping with the promise he established with 1991’s My Own Private Idaho but almost sabotaged in the following 10 years with forays into Hollywood mawkishness (Finding Forrester) and a pointless remake of Psycho. Gerry does much to clarify Van Sant’s strengths when properly trained on worthy material, primarily a respect for his audience’s cognitive abilities and the tender intimacies between men—often men in love. While his picture can be read metaphorically as an elegy on the difficulties of gay love, penning its participants on inhospitable ground, it also works as a cynical statement on Generation X and maybe the whole of independent filmmaking.
Still, Van Sant’s achievement of Beckett-worthy suggestiveness should not be confused with high-fiber speechifying. Gerry has a redemptive streak of absurdism injected into the spare dialogue of his relaxed leads—who may either be both named Gerry, or might just like to call each other that, since it means “colossal screw-up” in their private language. When Affleck is inexplicably trapped on top of a tall boulder, as Damon stares up at him in confusion, the solution eventually becomes clear: Leap off into a “dirt mattress.” A long beat. Of course. To be assembled with a “shirt basket.” After some protracted scuffling and the plunge, they wander on. Gerry snares you in this kind of twisted logic, and if you can take the plunge with it, you might be lost for days.
—Joshua H. Rothkopf
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