Food and Footage

First of all, I need to say that one of my favorite all time film moments is the moment in Before Sunrise when Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are in the listening booth of an old Austrian music shop and he wants to kiss her so bad–it’s actually difficult to look at his face without feeling that longing too. It’s just thrilling film making! And it’s so simple to understand why it works. It all boils down to chemistry between the actors and a director who is willing to let that lead the story at its own pace. But it would be virtually impossible to recreate that moment again. That’s a magical moment, plain and simple. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they shot it in the first take.

So then there’s Before Sunset, which takes all the promise of that first film and the magic between the actors, and tries to envision their cinematic future. Formally, this film seems much less free than the first one. There’s a lot that the actors need to say to each other and not so much time for  them to seemingly discover what’s important about each other. And whenever a plot point gets touched upon, the writing seems heavy handed. We loved Before Sunrise because, not always, but at certain moments, there didn’t seem to be a writer. Before Sunset has fewer of those moments.

But to say that it doesn’t have something is plain crazy. I think the key to liking this movie is realizing that the annoying aspects of these characters is what’s most real about them. Ethan Hawke’s tacky, overtly sexual comments, for example, seem so honestly inevitable. His thin veil of machismo is so perfectly crafted over his intense self-consciousness and vulnerability. He’s not subtle. He’s not cool. He’s sort of horny and obnoxious.

And she is equally obnoxious. She’s tense and graceless. She doesn’t say anything funny on purpose and her references are a bit boring. In fact, it’s only when she talks about herself personally that she really seems appealing.

Sexual tension is a really important part of this film. Whether or not they will end up together is the central question and also the fantasy motivating the characters, pushing the plot along. Julie Delpy’s character, Celine, inserts sex into the conversation with what she hopes will seem like intellectual frankness but underneath, there’s something manipulative going on. She’s using it as a ploy to excite him and keep his mind trained on her. But when she does get that reaction she looks away from him; as if she’s angry with herself.

There have been plenty of female rom-com characters who try to be cute, or seem affected for the sake of men, but, it’s rare to see a woman acknowledge that performance with subtle facial expressions of remorse. At the same time, Ethan Hawke looks like he’s actively trying to recapture the connection they had the first time they met and even though those attempts looks awkward on film, it feels real because they are so clumsy and awkward.

If it’s possible, their characters seem more excruciatingly vulnerable in this film than they did in the first one.

Kelly Richardt made this film in 2006  and sort of challenged Gus van Sant’s take on Oregon as film muse.

The film is maddeningly atmospheric.  It’s like the visual equivalent of “aural wallpaper” The viewer is literally staring out the window for 15 percent of the film. And Yo La Tengo keeps the soundtrack so understated that we aren’t really able to stray too far metaphorically from the literal view.

Maybe I’m thinking about vanSant because he is a gay filmmaker and Old Joy is, if not a homosexual film, then certainly homosocial.  Will Oldham’s character is a little bit Buck from Chuck and Buck and a little bit like Sal Mineo’s character in Rebel Without a Cause.

It’s hard to understand a character like this one unless you’ve met someone like him before. His intensity is stark and raw, perhaps in a way we’d all like to feel  sometimes. But it’s also on the edge of delusional.

In Old Joy, this character is named Kurt and he and his friend Mark go on a short camping trip to an isolated hot springs in the forest outside of Portland. The two men seem out of step with each other from their first interaction. When Mark drives to pick up Kurt from his house, Kurt is off somewhere collecting a cooler and some other junk for their trip and Mark sits on the porch wondering if his friend will show up at all. Mark also has a pregnant wife and in the brief glimmer we get of their relationship, the two seem stressed and sad.

When Kurt does show up, he seems shy and beholden to Mark. We learn later that the two were old roommates but that relationship seems far away now. When these two men meet again, they are rediscovering each other with very tentative probings. On their first night out camping, Kurt gets really drunk and the true nature of his feelings for Mark come out. To say that he loves Mark is accurate. But that love is not an easy categorical love. It seems explosive in every direction–will Kurt kiss Mark? Kill him? rape him? Is he crazy, or just lonely and lost? Will Oldham bring out Kurt’s character so fully with so little dialogue. It’s really incredible that he is able to pack such a short film (111 minutes!) with so much subtext.

But he also conveys a lot physically. There are these moments when Kurt looks at Mark with something slightly more evil than longing. In the culmination of the film, when the two have reached the hot springs, stripped down and entered there separate tubs, Kurt (after getting out to smoke a bowl) crouches behind Mark and begins massaging his shoulders. Mark tenses up and Kurt tells him to relax. The camera focuses on Mark’s hand, which starts out tightly gripped around the edge of the tub and slowly loosens and sinks into the water. His wedding ring eerily prominent. His hand limp like a dead man’s. He’s given in to Kurt and maybe it was the right thing to do. But his giving in also seems tainted because we can see that he thinks Kurt is off his rocker and when he lets Kurt take control of  him, physically, it’s like he’s going against his better judgement.

At the center of Old Joy is the tension of life lived deliberately versus life lived passively as a witness.  I would also add that the film uses the buddy (homosocial) relationship to reveal the difficulties of male bonding in our society. This film could never have been made about two women. Women are allowed to be physically close to one another to a much greater degree without things getting “weird”.