A Desert

That's the final observation from private detective Harold Palladino (an Oscar-worthy --- in a just universe --- performance by David Yow) at the conclusion of A Desert, short and video director Joshua Erkman's feature length debut. That's true of the film itself at the start, which you're best going blind into, because like the tunnel of time itself, what's waiting at the end is sometimes best kept in the dark.

A Desert opens on two exquisitely shot sequences with art photographer Alex Clark lurking around an eerily abandoned cinema and then a deserted military barracks in the Yucca Valley. The composition, pacing and eye for odd details do justice to Erkman's and his DP Jay Keitel's meticulous lens and clue you in that nothing you are seeing is unintentional or meaningless, just as the excerpt of James Landis' 1963 B-flick from hell, "The Sadist," playing in all its slobbery glory on the motel room of the antagonist Renny and his girlfriend Susie isn't random either, if not a bit spot-on.

Alex is a man out of time, ditching his devices for a full-on analog road trip with a gorgeous Deerdorff 8 x 10 camera in tow, until he meets up with Renny at a fleabag motel and things go sideways.

If this all sounds vaguely familiar in a noiry/ Lynchian kind of of way, it is, until it's not. A Desert shares those sensibilities, but what lifts it into stratas you don't expect to visit are the performances, all of which are as phenomenal as Yow's. Kai Lennox and Sarah Lind, in particular, as Alex and his wife Sarah, are so natural and poignant that they ground you and unexpectedly trap you into facing the carnage that follows with a hyper-immediacy that the film as a whole doesn't always earn.

Erkman really shot for the stars with this one, metaphorically and literally. There are plenty of flashbacks and circular arcs that sometimes work beautifully and some that simply dangle, like the alluring still of blank theater screens that pervade this film, haunting you with kinder universes than the one we're ultimately left with.

Proceed at your own risk with A Desert... it's not a knock-off genre film or a quickie-watch by any means. But if you like being surprised, shocked, or just enjoy really innovative film making and beautiful images, you'll find plenty here to enjoy on multiple viewings.

I don't know how well 'A Desert' will be received, because it requires a lot of patience on the part of the audience, but I really enjoyed it. To be fair though, it is exactly my kind of film. Nothing flashy, just a story of the pure evil that humans possess.

I never really felt like I knew where this film was headed. I didn't know how dark it was willing to go (I really had no idea as it turns out) and I didn't know the route it was going to go down. It's a fun way to watch a movie when that is the case.

As mentioned though it will test some people's patience. If that doesn't bother you then you'll likely find something quite enjoyable here along the way. 7/10.

There are moments in film making that creates an atmosphere of tension coupled with simplistic ingenuity that resonates the viewer into a bewildering, raw framework of sublime film making.

Perfectly executed in every way. As simplistic as this film is, the characters were interwoven into a very complex architecture of plot expression.

The development throughout created overtones of tense, picturesque frames of a truly monumental plot.

The extrapolation and containment of a centralized idea, being the still photographic frame superimposed with a powerfully expressive and naturalistic performance given, drops the audience into a surreal, nightmarish experience that I truly loved.

Well done!