Gerry (DVD)

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Gus Van Sant is the director who gave us a shot-for-shot remake of "Psycho" in 1998 because, as I remember him explaining it, Who wants to watch an old black-and-white film? Then in 2002 he gave us "Gerry," his imitation of Nicolas Roeg's "Walkabout." Neither of the Van Sant films interested me much or, apparently, interested the rest of the world.

To be fair, Van Sant also gave us "Good Will Hunting," "Finding Forrester," and "My Own Private Idaho," so we know what he's capable of. "Gerry" just isn't it.

Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, who cowrote "Gerry" with Van Sant, star as a pair of buddies, both named Gerry, who stop their car one afternoon in the middle of the desert to take a walk. And that's all they do, for 103 minutes. They promptly get lost, talk amiably of trivial things, and joke while trying to reorient themselves, then begin to despair as they realize the seriousness of their situation. They could die out there. Unfortunately, so could we, watching this movie.

We know we're in for a long haul when the film opens without fanfare--no production credits or title--and we get about six straight minutes of the fellows' car silently moseying down a highway. Like most of the rest of the movie, it's graceful and lyrical, a kind of "2001" of the desert, but it's not very engaging, and one begins to lose interest and patience fast.

Van Sant and company were undoubtedly considering notions of existential landscapes here, but for what purpose? The problem with any tale with visions of grandeur and metaphorical insights is that a viewer can read practically anything into them he wishes and justify his interpretations on the flimsiest excuses. But a good symbolic story, be it an "Animal Farm," "Lord of the Flies," or "Walkabout," must have at its core a compelling premise or intriguing narrative in the first place, or there isn't any second place. "Gerry" simply has no plot to get engrossed in.

Yes, one could make a case for the film figuratively representing life as a maze, with its unknown goal. Or perhaps it's about Man's losing his way in the moral wilderness of existence; or it's a treatise on material vs. spiritual values or life as a dream quest or life as survival of the fittest. Maybe it represents the decline of Western civilization, I don't know. But any way you look at it, it's mostly boring.

However, the cinematography is stunning, at the very least, and the movie does present a beautiful series of desert vistas and panoramas. Combined with its long, lingering shots of Affleck and Damon trudging onward through the desert, the film can be quite calming in a mesmerizing sort of way, and one cannot deny the soothing benefits of tranquility. But if I had wanted a travelogue, several of the high-definition television channels I receive offer such entertainment at far less cost.

Affleck and Damon spend most of their screen time appearing to ad lib in an improvisational manner, which gets old fast. There is a cute bit where Affleck gets stuck up on a huge rock and can't get down, but it only serves to emphasize the ambiguity of the film. How'd he get up there? Are these guys as smart as they sound or as dumb as they act? Their behavior is like the film itself, leading the viewer to consider the movie either a brilliant allegory or a dumb waste of time. For the most part, I found "Gerry" an exercise in self indulgence.