Directed by Gus Van Sant
United States, 2002
An imagined conversation:
Studio exec: So what’s the pitch?
Gus: Well, we have two bankable stars.
Studio exec: Great…who?
Gus: Matt Damon and Casey Affleck
Studio exec: Fantastic…so what’s the story?
Gus: Well, the two of them go for a hike in Death Valley. Neither of them says very much, and eventually they get lost.
Studio exec: Pardon me?
Gus: Are you familiar with the work of Samuel Beckett?
Studio exec: Out!
Once in a while you sit down to watch a film and within a few minutes you realise that you are watching a genuine work of art. What was surprising with Gerry is that we were familiar with the director, Gus Van Sant: Drugstore Cowboy, Elephant, even Good Will Hunting. We were familiar with the two leads: Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. But somehow Gerry had passed us by. I suppose this is by definition what N would call a slept-on film. No, a slept-on classic.
And the story? Well, it really is about two young men who drive to Death Valley, park their car and start walking. Apparently they are on a hike looking for ‘the thing’. They look like they expect to find it pretty quickly, as they have brought nothing with them - just two small bottles of water. Not much is said, in fact there is no conversation until one quips to the other:
Gerry, let’s stick to the path.
But after bumping into a few random tourists they decide to make their own way. And then, after a few more minutes the plan to reach their cryptic destination is thrown out of the window.
Gerry: Fuck the thing
Gerry: Yeah, let’s fuck the thing.
What does that mean? Perhaps a reference to throwing out the script because the storyline progression is a result of an improvisation between Van Sant, Damon, and Affleck. It’s a testament to their skill that their portrayal of a complicated friendship appears naturalistic. And the two Gerry’s? Yes, that is what they call each other.
No food, no water, no mobiles, no GPS. That is the starting point. Two men lost in the desert and what follows is a slow, hypnotic, and enigmatic film that could be a masterpiece. You could say that nothing really happens now until the final ten minutes of the film. You could also say that everything happens, as the pair trudge through the landscape, climbing dunes, scrambling across creek beds. Speech is sparse but when they do talk it’s a kind of in-house slang. Gerry turns out to be not only the name of both characters, but also a noun, a verb, and a euphemism for anything bad that happens.
Gerry: I crows-nested up here to scout about the ravine.
Gerry: I thought maybe you gerried the rendezvous.
The language may be coded but as Gerry takes its time in the telling you begin to decode the two characters. Matt Damon is the dominant one, more prone to action than thought. In contrast Affleck is passive, and more obviously emotional. Gerry has an unhurried pace and at times feel slow, but that is not to its detriment because where Gus Van Sant excels is in his control of time. If you have read our piece, In Praise of Slow Cinema, you will know that the ability to master time in film is a skill possessed by some of the greatest directors. Andrei Tarkovsky had it, Apichatpong Weerasethakul has it, and Van Sant shows signs of it with Gerry.
Working with the beautiful but stark, panoramic cinematography of Harris Savides, Van Sant emphasises long, unbroken takes that linger, at times on the two characters and at others on the landscape, giving the impression that the film is playing out in real time. These shots are interrupted only by brief timelapse scenes of clouds drifting through the sky.
The landscape, the desert, is the third character in the film. It changes: sometimes rugged and rock-strewn, at others a salt pan - so flat and so white that you could mistake it for the Antarctic. But then a shot of the hot, red sun rising…perhaps we are really on Mars? The ascendancy of the environment is reinforced by wide shots and the off-centre framing of the two Gerrys. Yet, that harshness fails to counter the delicacy of Arvo Pärt’s compositions that form the soundtrack: Spiegel im Spiegel and Für Alina.
The obvious allusion is to the work Samuel Beckett and at one point it does look as though Godot is arriving. And Gerry is not without wit. At times Affleck and Damon‘s relationship has a Laurel and Hardy quality about it. In one scene somehow Casey Affleck finds himself stuck on top of a 20-foot boulder with no obvious way down. But how did he get up there in the first place?
Gerry: I’m marooned, I can’t climb down.
It’s like the inverse of the Myth of Sisyphus. But this is not an eternal journey. It does come to an end eventually. Just when you think they are both about to die of dehydration, one Gerry says, “I’m leaving”. The pair become locked in a violent, impassioned embrace.
And then there was one…but maybe there was just a single Gerry all along?
Gerry: How do you think the hike is going so far?
Gerry: Pretty good.
Always check the down climb before climbing a boulder - N
Reids’ Results (out of 100)
C - 82
T - 86
N - 77
S - 89
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Coming next… Possessor(2020)
