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A brooding orgy of a flick that's as polarizing as a film can possibly be, GERRY reteams the director with HUNTING's Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two hiking buddy dudes who unwittingly find themselves digging their own graves upon losing themselves in the vast dunes of Death Valley.

The opening sequence commences with Damon and Affleck (both calling each other Gerry throughout the film) quietly driving on the highway. Proceeding with the perceptible ambiance of two unwitting casket dwellers, the long sequence is furnished with Arvo Part's hauntingly prescient piano piece "Spiegel im Spiegel." Upon stopping (and with no phones or water), they press onwards to a trail that leads them to vast nowheres of landscape. The outset of their faux pas carries the mood of a Beavis and Butthead episode. Both friends bear the spiritual reservoirs to jokingly bicker back and forth after initial setbacks. But the waggishness gradually slithers by the wayside to clutches of desperation after several days in the hot elements.

Of torturous hardship to this film (outside of its minimal casting and cerebral undercurrent) is its pronounced lack of dialogue, approximating three-quarters of its entirety. The few instances dialogue does manifest itself, they're generally speaking (sometimes not too clearly) about topics of a trivially cretinous nature. In some sequences, only footsteps and winds provide the movie's soundtrack. But the effect is stirring, even while its sedative quality does grind out your tolerance. Van Sant's attention for omnipresent silence (along with the actors' mumbo jumbo) intentionally evokes the humdrum and inane that, unfortunately, constitute the majority of the vast wilderness in our lives.

Harris Savides's overpowering cinematography communicates the real story behind GERRY. Fast-forwarding cloud movements project a doomsday foreboding while the mere immensity of the landscape in many shots seems to devour Damon and Affleck. For those outside the domain of brain surgery be made aware: even you will know that this film has a lot to do about nature's strong-arm sovereignty over us wee humans. Though GERRY's naturalistic theme can be anticipated with effortless intuition, the spectacle does hold us captive amid the skulking menace of the boys' inevitably wrongful demise.

Several scenes stand out in the film spotlighting the alpha male/schlemiel pattern between the more mature Damon and Affleck. In the lightest scene in GERRY, Affleck has to rely on Damon's assistance after getting stuck atop a huge rock. Nearing the end of the movie, after the perceptibility of the boys' now-desperate crawl from the jaws of death, we see them lying on the parched sands dying from exhaustion. Upon hearing a queer observation from Affleck ("This is some trip, huh?"), Damon rolls on top of him with hands to his throat in a gesture suggestive of either exasperation or homo-eroticism. By the end of this saga, who (and what) survives and triumphs becomes the regrettable truth we can't deny.

GERRY does seem to be a movie built on a foundation of artsy-fartsy pretentiousness from Van Sant. It's the sort of "challenging" film content in fulfilling such narrow purposes for a director's oversuspicious ego. The beautifully-shot visuals and mesmerizing mood do more to obscure the lack of ambitious ingenuity that could've catapulted the experience to something truly unforgettable.

But with all its taxing barriers for moviegoing-friendliness, GERRY still elevates us to something more daring and fulfilling than what's typically dished out. This film contains some of the most strikingly-shot sequences in recent film memory (look for the one near the end with Damon walking ahead of Affleck in the wind-gusting sands). The experience of viewing GERRY is cinematically tantamount to fixating your stare towards a candle's flame (no, I have not been hypnotized nor will I be clucking like a chicken):

The misery of languishing under its quietly rhythmic motions slides away the more immersed you are in what it's doing to you.

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originally posted: 02/24/03 14:09:00
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