Just tuned in on the ifc channel to the last hour of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry, from 2003 “starring” Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, and no one else. They trudge thru the scrub then they trudge across a sand or salt desert and then lieying flat on their backs out of sheer exhaustion. They went hiking in a scrub desert and forgot where they pahked the cah and trudged and trudged some more. Then, thinking somehow that they might have passed thru some distant mountains, they head for them and climb them. Casey then has a major crisis when he cannot figure how to climb down off the top of a roughly cubical rock about 15 feet high, and surrounded by level ground. I won’t even “spoil” it by revealing his solution. There is no explanation of how he got to the top of it first. It just ended. Leonard Maltin said that “Some…will head for the exits”. Anybody else ever able to sit thru the whole thing? Thoughts?
Well, to be fair, every blurb I’ve seen in TV or online program guides has described this movie as, basically, a waste of time. So I’ve managed to avoid watching it any number of times.
Program guides - they can be your friend… 
Roddy
I’ve never seen it, but this article made it sound interesting. It does apparently have a small following of people that think it’s good. Or at least think it’s interesting and non-terrible.
I haven’t read Sam’s article yet, but indeed I sat through the whole film. It was difficult at times, but in the end I thought it was brilliant.
I saw it on DVD, which was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the photography was astonishing and gorgeous, which would have been amazing on a big screen. On the other, the times I got fidgety and tense I could walk around the living room or do dishes or something. In a theater I might have felt too confined.
It consists of long, looooooooooooong sequences of walking. Sometimes very, veeeeeerrrrrrrry slowly. I’m not particularly a fan of “arty” cinema, but I really got absorbed in the dreamy surreal beauty of the images juxtaposed with the sick, physical horror of what these guys were going through. It reminded me of Eiko and Koma, who move so slowly in their “dance” that you almost go into a trance. I’m sure it’s torture for some, but when done right, it can be relevatory - like meditation, I guess.
Not sure that convinces anyone or helps the OP, but typing this makes me want to see it again. I’d recommend it for the very open-minded and patient, and it’s probably better to see it alone rather than with a date.
Haven’t seen that one, but I saw “Elephant,” and as much as it might be heresy for a Portland resident (whose daughter has served Van Sant drinks and dinner on numerous occasions) to say so, I WANT MY TWO HOURS BACK, DAMMIT! Yeah, I know what he was going for, I get it–I just really, really hated it–in no small part because I already WENT to high school and watching that movie felt like going through all four years AGAIN. Grrrrrr.
:smack:
I thought it was a pretty compelling attempt to imagine what it was like for the two actual guys the story is based on. I found it very effective.
Funny this thread should come up. I’ve been DVRing scary movies all week for Halloween and came across this. I had never heard it and read the info and decided to go ahead and add it to my recorded shows. Guess I’ll give it a try…
I rather liked it, although I’m aware I’m in the minority. I found the long trudging scenes to be almost hypnotic.
Elephant was less effective, I thought, and I didn’t care for the ersatz Cobain movie at all.