Gerry (2002)

the audience applauded

Excellent but underrated film

A Masterpiece!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is quite possibly the most boring film I've ever watched... and it took me three attempts to get to the end because it is a fantastic film for sending you to sleep.SPOILER ALERT: Not sure if this counts as a spoiler or not... but the film consists of 10 minutes of two blokes walking followed by 10 minutes of a close up on the faces of two blokes walking followed by 1 minute of very brief dialogue followed by 10 minutes of two blokes walking followed by 10 minutes of 360 degree panoramic shot of the scenery followed by 10 minutes close up on the faces of two blokes walking followed by 10 minutes of one bloke on a rock followed by 5 minutes on top of a hill followed by 10 minutes of walking followed by 10 minutes lying down in the sun The end The lack of dialogue, the lack of anything, and the rhythmic sound of marching just sends you to sleep.Just an awful film. There is literally nothing good to say about the film. I can only think that positive reviews are from people who have a thing for one of the two actors because there are a lot of close ups of them walking. There is a homo-erotic feel to the film that might be why it gets some positive responses from those who like that kind of thing but except that... what was the point of this film?

I can not, for the life of me, fathom how this film received so many awards. The acting was none existing, the writers must have written the whole film in less seconds then the film has minutes and each of those 103 minutes felt like an hour. Apparently I missed the deep artistic meaning behind two men, who just so happen to share the same name, end up playing douche in an over sized sandpit and get lost. Watching two men walk around aimlessly in a desert without hardly saying a word is not enough to entertain me. I experience more excitement watching the sand in an hour glass fill the bottom half. The idea of the film doesn't interest me, the writers have done nothing to make it interesting and sitting through this whole film was torture. Instead of watching the whole film, I suggest you watch the trailer. You will have seen pretty much all of the dialogue and the highlights of the film.

Gerry will not be for everyone... although that's a pretty big understatement. It moves at a snail's pace, it has a very minimal plot, it has very few editing choices... and all of that is exactly the type of film that appeals to me. Both of the leads are pretty strong, although Affleck considerably moreso. He's a very talented performer who's always filled with the inside of his character and who's naturalism is a benefit in all of his films. He's the reason I sought this out and I was not disappointed. I'm not too familiar with Gus Van Sant's work besides Milk, but his directing is key here. This is a pretty strong film all around, despite there being so little.

Gus Van Sant's Gerry is a mesmerizing movie-experience that won't likely be liked, or even experienced, by traditional moviegoers. We don't really know or realize it, but seeing so many dominate Hollywood films and movies that boast bigger budgets and bigger agendas have made us more accepting towards the films that show/do more. Think about it; would the public rather see a story that is character/plot heavy or a one-hundred minute long film about two characters listlessly roaming a desert terrain? That is the plot of Gerry in the biggest sense; the two men are both named Gerry (played by Casey Affleck and Matt Damon), and decide to venture out to explore the mountains, get lost, and continue to wander without hydration or a means of food in an effort to find their car. This is a story that begs further explanation and a viewer-made meaning. It is part of a genre of film, I label, impressionism, meaning the film gives you a vague story, thinly-developed characters, and an ambiguous plot and almost forces you to find a meaning in its content. The ultimate goal, if there is one, is to find a meaning that works, or even try to distinguish the meaning from the director's point-of-view. Gerry was Gus Van Sant's venture into independent cinema after years of making studio features, and began his self-named "Death Trilogy." What followed was the spectacular Elephant, centering around a seemingly typical day in the life of kids at a high school that ended tragically, and Last Days, about a rocker suffering blowbacks from society and the weight of fame.One thing all of these films have in common is they appear to be loosely predicated off of a true-life event. Elephant seems to mirror the events of the Columbine High School massacre in the late nineties, Last Days is a loose adaptation of the final days of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, and Gerry has been said to bear similarities to David Coughlin, a far less famous man who was killed by a friend when they were lost in the desert in 1999.The way I see it, when it comes to the "Death Trilogy," is that Van Sant is trying to provide some sort of interpretation to the largely unknown stories of the events that lead up to those three tragedies. To this day, all of those events remain largely black and white, and perhaps Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days serve as some sort of account of what Van Sant believes happened that day.As for Gerry, this can be a film that tests your patience in every possible way. Scenes are photographed with stunning clarity, the conversations are not consistent, often touching on random topics such as video games and personal frustrations, long patches of silence are not atypical, and the film's one-hundred minutes feels every bit like it. There is enough scenes of constant walking here to equate to a real-life hike; one scene reaches an upwards of five minutes, focusing in on the two's expressions as they walk the vacant desert. As time goes on, their walk becomes brisker, faster in pace before finally they stop. The scene's tension is played out nicely due to the fact that we can't see what they're walking towards, if anything, and we begin to feel their frustration explicitly through tone and focus.The film is not the easiest sit I've had in my time of watching films. At times maddeningly uneventful, and at others, tense and jolting, it's safe to label Gerry an eclectic mixed-bag of impressionistic style. Casey Affleck and Matt Damon are efficient in their open roles, and the film's beautiful landscapes are photographed through the piercingly clear vision of the cameras, making this for a delightful scenic film, especially when the hypnotic tendencies and mirages begin to set in. With Gerry, Van Sant has effectively made his most damning work.Starring: Casey Affleck and Matt Damon. Directed by: Gus Van Sant.