18 July 2005

Last Days, and Elephant and Gerry

There was something elegaic about Elephant. It was a sort of lilting meditation almost on behalf of the spirit of one of the dead killer's soul -- taking the viewer on a journey through the world from which he came and from which he left. And there were no explanations.

But that wasn't quite it. Gerry indicated that Elephant wasn't the end of something, but the beginning of a new voice. Van Sant was stepping up the volume of the meditation and removing even more of the narrative drive. To think that this is what an accomplished and successful (both as an indie director and as a Hollywood commodity) was turning to was truly lovely. That the result was fascinating and sat on the edge of its reach exceeding its grasp was wonderful.

But with Last Days we see that the previous films were not flukes. Last Days takes the topicality of Elephant and the existentialism of Gerry and digs deeper into the psyche than either by being a bit more grounded than Gerry and much less sensational (as in less sensationalized) than the already very dry Elephant.

Perhaps it hits me strongly because during the early 90s I lived in homes like that, among people not too far removed from these people. And why one does or does not end up on one side or the other of the line (between dead and living, slacker and worker, child and adult, right and wrong) continues to be puzzling.