Aversion Therapy
by James Snapko

You could say Gus Van Sant's new film Gerry is a statement against the garbage he's been shoveling into theaters since his amusing film To Die For was released in 1995. Could it be that a steady string of formulaic films beginning with 1997's Good Will Hunting, intermixed with a heinous remake of Psycho, and a boring vehicle for Sean Connery (Finding Forrester), has conjured up a big fuss inside Gus? Van Sant has all but come out and said he's disowning his past with this film - Gerry is his anti-Hollywood movie.

Casey Affleck and Matt Damon play two young men who are both named Gerry. Gerry and Gerry go for a hike in the desert -- presumably in the American southwest. They get lost. The rest of the film shows their struggle to survive and their inability to figure a way back to civilization. Since this is really all we have to go on, it becomes somewhat beside the point to try and identify with either Gerry. Who are these guys? The only bits of information we get about them are that they drive an older model Mercedes, in which they arrive at the beginning of the film, and that one Gerry watches Wheel of Fortune while the other Gerry plays video games. It's not even clear if they are really all that good of friends. We just aren't given enough information or insight into these characters to know. Since this is the case, this film inherently distances itself from the audience. That's the point.

The picture achieves an ascetic tone through its slow pace and disregard of a plot. As unconventional and purposefully languid as it might seem, Gerry has one element running contrary to the cinematic obstinacy it seemingly promotes: Matt Damon. That's not a bad thing, either. Of course, he's a big-name star that will draw some to the box office for that reason only. However, ironically, co-star Casey Affleck (younger brother of Ben) gets top billing. They both do a good job here, but, as we find out, they are really just ancillary characters to the overwhelming presence of the barren desert landscapes. The movie revels in this visual tension. Throughout the film, we see the Gerry tandem diminished by their surroundings. Long shots give way to extreme long shots, emphasizing their complete and total subservience to the desolate landscapes.

Gerry does have some stirring moments. Because of the long, drawn out takes (many shots last for several minutes without a cut) audience members may have a hard time sitting still. That's not to say that the duration of the shots aren't effective - they give our eyes the opportunity to wander the widescreen compositions (this film relies heavily on the cinemascope presentation). The images are sometimes engrossing, sometimes empty, and always marked with a sense of self-awareness. To some extent, we are watching a film about the filmmaking process itself.

This film attempts to be an affront to Western thinking about how films should be -- such as, there needs to be a point, right? Ontological questions aside, the lack of emotional investment amplifies the idea that the film is ultimately an experiment, an exercise in the subversion of Hollywood cinematic conventions. There's no real dramatic arch, no love interest, no heroic climaxes or soul-bearing monologues. And stylistically, Gerry is at the polar opposite to standard Hollywood fare - would a Bruce Willis film even attempt a ten minute scene consisting of three shots showing a character stuck on top of a rock?

The logical question is, why? Why try to run counter to the "shape of things" in movies? After all, Van Sant did show us he could fit right in. It's almost as if his last batch of films was a way of saying that his earlier works were just a phase he needed to work through.

Gus Van Sant

So, why has he changed his approach again? Does this mark the return to, or, better yet, a recasting of his earlier works into something more mature? Is this film is a way to say "up yours" to the money driven studio-machine that appears to be healthier and more powerful than ever? It seems Van Sant longs to be the new Fassbinder -- free of the barriers and restrictions of the bottom line, not having to kowtow to a studio head, not having to compromise his vision.

Although I like Van Sant's idealism, I don't think he's the filmmaker that will push the boundaries of film as we know it. There's a difference between doing something out of the mainstream and doing something good. So far he hasn't shown he can reconcile that problem. He knocks directors like Darren Aronofsky and Oliver Stone for creating vacuous films that abide by the MTV rules of style. He laments the way filmmakers are forced to make each moment in a film exciting for the audience, to, in effect, produce the cinematic equivalent making the equivalent of fast-food.

Gerry feels somewhat like an avant-garde foreign film - the influences of Bela Tarr and Chantal Akerman are evident, among others. But perhaps the film's marginal status gets us to Gerry's critique of contemporary cinema and television. If you're tired of all the explosions, shouting matches, guns discharging, the rapid-fire editing styles of many main stream action films, MTV music videos, the overbearing pathos of psychological melodramas, or the proliferation of insipid "reality" TV shows, then this film could serve as a kind of cinematic cleansing of the soul, an antidote to the overblown trauma seen on those kinds of shows.

To his credit, Van Sant plays his cards well. This film is loaded with symbolic imagery, and it has an extremely ethereal quality, in part due to the score by Arvo Pärt, but mostly because of the director's use of movement and stasis. When the camera moves, the characters are essentially going nowhere. When the shots are static, ditto. Some of the most potent moments in the film occur later on, when each Gerry's psyche is visualized through furious, fast-motion images of the highway they drove in on. Each symbolic sequence is almost identical, mostly showing their delusional state of mind, except for one glaring image that hints at the fate of the two. So, finally, when the ending occurs, we are left feeling much like the characters do --burnt out. So is Van Sant's attempt to do something that will shake the medium a success or a failure? The answer lies in how his career heads from here. Are we going to see more Good Will's or more Gerry's? Although this film isn't great, I hope Van Sant's approach isn't left behind in the dust.

©2003 James Snapko
CineScene