Gerry

I've seen "My Own Private Idaho", "Finding Forrester" and "Good Will Hunting" by Gus Van Sant which were all fairly impressive but now am very eager to watch the 2003 Palme D'Or winner "Elephant", especially after my initial screening of "Gerry" last night which tops all the Van Sant flicks I've seen to date. This is an engaging effort from Gus, and outstanding career highlight performances for the main actors Casey Affleck and Matt Damon. I can see why people are saying that some shots are "too long" and other comments like "I fell asleep", however I love this style of cinema which reminded me a lot of the spectacular effort from Kitano with "Dolls". Minimal, hypnotic, and great shots throughout. The camera trickery has to be highlighted with varying depth of field shots giving you a deluded sense of fatigue, plus the ongoing buzzing sound which intensifies with the sun throughout the evolving journey, similar to the buzzing lights in Noé's "Irréversible". The main point I want to bring up is the film was very well structured and scripted for the time it covers. It's realistic and well balanced with regular events. However if your comfort zone sits around the 'Hollywood standard' where there's a 5 camera shoot for every scene with 3 second cuts between shots and the suspenseful default score to keep you 'on your seat', then you'll be pleasantly appalled with this 'real' rendition of a devastating true story.

8/10

I really enjoyed this movie, largely because its style goes against so much we have become used to as modern viewers. I admit, the pace was slowwwww..... but in this age of fast-cuts, it was nice to see a director trying to do something different -- trying to create a state, rather than just tell a story. The plot is simple, two guys through lack of attention get lost in the desert. Thats it. In the next few days we follow the characters through a range of emotions--anger, worry, fear, doubt, determination, love. Central is the relationship between the two characters and the journey it takes in all its ups and downs. Here, I thought Damon and Affleck did a great job, giving their characters nuances that indicated they were friends that knew each other well. Throughout the cinematography is superb and certainly innovative. Though some scenes may be trying for some viewers (think of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Omar Sharif approaches from afar riding a camel), the shots are full of intensity and are visually creative. For me, the movie was a brave and largely successful attempt to give insight into a life-changing experience. I thought about it for days after.

This is not a good film.

But it's not a bad film either.

Consider the blank canvas hung in the museum. Questions arise: What is this? Why is this here? Who did this? Why did they do this? And most importantly, do I care about this?

These are the type of questions you will be left with after seeing `Gerry.'

The film is painfully slow to watch, the dialogue unrewarding, the landscape more interesting than the cinematography, the characters undefined, and the plot full of holes.

And yet, the film sticks with you and makes you think... just as the blank canvas does.

After leaving the theater, you truly contemplate the strange trip you just took through the middle of nowhere while you draw parallels to your own adventures.

And for these reasons the journey is worthwhile... the film, worth seeing.

Two friends (both called Gerry) take a drive out into the New Mexico wilderness to go and see the thing. Following the trail they assume will lead them right there they eventually decide they are not going to find it and decide to head back to their car. However they have been blindly hiking for hours and before long they realise that they are lost. Sleeping rough that night, they continue their trek across the desert in search of a way out, putting their friendship under stress with every passing hour.

Perhaps this is one of those like it or hate it type movies but I do dislike the way that those that love it feel the need to lash out at those that don't, claiming that they are perhaps stupid or hollow people for not getting the beauty of this movie. Personally I do slightly suspect that the viewers who fall over themselves to love this film have never really seen many films that compare and perhaps mistake being different and non-multiplex as being the same as having depth. That the film is minimalistic and different is not in question but there is no substance to this film other than what the viewer forces into their own experience of it.

Having said that the film is still hauntingly beautiful to watch. The desert landscapes are impressive and really well captured – what a shame that you do not go to the cinema just to stare at landscapes. The cast of two have nothing to do but, as they are also responsible for the concept then they have nobody else to really blame. Affleck and Damon stumble around the place vaguely improvising but they have nothing about them; most of the time I found them an intrusion in front of the landscapes that were of much more interest.

Overall then a beautiful but empty film. The landscapes are haunting but I could not find any of this beauty in the material (such as it was). Those desperately seeking something deep will find it, but that is different from the film actually having depth.

I was curious about this film, but totally unprepared for how much it affected me. GERRY worked, for me, on many different levels. In some ways, it felt like a horror film, but without any supernatural element. Two men get lost. That's the premise, and the movie takes its time to really explore what it feels like to suddenly have no idea where you are. As the film went on, something about it began to feel abstract, as if the film wasn't just about being lost physically, but about what it feels like to feel alone in the universe. I don't mean that to sound flighty or pretentious, but the film gradually moves into a state of deep sadness that is hard to describe. I'm sure (from the looks of some of the particularly angry comments some people have posted) that this film won't be appreciated by everyone who sees it. Some may find it dull. I found it completely absorbing, and unlike anything I'd ever seen.

(By the way, if you don't like a film, that's fine. But some of the ANGER displayed below is completely unjustified, and perhaps a sign of some deeper trauma that has nothing to do with the movie you didn't like.)