OK film fans, I'm feeling pretty tired and kind of low after another day on the front lines of commerce. I was trying to think of what to write about, near comatose on my couch, and in my groggy state I began to run through some of my favorite films about people on the edge, people marginalized and forgotten but unwilling to give in or give up. And tonight I have one of my favorites although, as my sage would say, "Like all good films, it is not for everybody (only bad films are for everybody)."
Jesus' Son is not a perfect film but at the same time a shining example of the value of independent filmmaking. With its thorny subject matter, shifting narrative devices and ambiguous characters it simply would never be produced in Hollywood. The film, with a title that's not literal but a line from the Lou Reed song "Heroin", is a nonlinear and disjointed batch of recollections from a clueless, good-hearted man referred to as FH (Billy Crudup a year before Almost Famous threatened to make his a "star"). FH is a moniker for something less than polite, but befitting his mind altered existence.
It begins with a voice over and promptly acknowledges having jumped the gun and needing to start over. As we get rolling the film follows FH as he floats through his existence, going where circumstance takes him. He seems to live outside of his world, rather than in it; observing, but not always participating. As such, the film has the feel of random pages read out of someone's diary. A glimpse at a stranger's most intimate feelings without truly understanding who they are or why they do the things they do. Along the way we meet an eclectic group of fellow sufferers on life's journey, most leaving FH with something of themselves, a few others take something from him.
The story begins in Iowa City during the fall of 1971. FH is a college town cast off, not part of the school but part of the scene around it. Despite the main character's involvement with drugs, this is not a drug film like you normally see in Hollywood. It does not glorify or damn drug use and the users; it simply is part of the recollections of a survivor. Near the beginning of the film FH meets Michelle (Samantha Morton in top form), they talk a little and later become inseparable. This is partly because she has introduced him to heroin and it begins to control both of their lives. The sad part here is we can tell how much they love each other, but with drugs it's an either/or life and you don't get both. The intimate scenes between them do not feel like what you see in typical Hollywood films, it is not forced or erotic. It is direct, needy and urgent. They feed off of each other as if they know there may not be anything else.
As we follow FH through his episodic memories of life we meet other longing and lost characters, each in search of some meaning in a single day or an event in their life. One memory finds FH with a barroom buddy named Wayne (Dennis Leary), who takes him to a job stripping copper from a house (which turns out to have been his when he was married) so they can get enough cash to go to bed drunk. For men without jobs and direction, it's as close as they come to feeling dignity at the end of a day. Later while working as an orderly in a hospital he meets Georgie (Jack Black), a pill popper who is a man of action.
FH seems a variant of the "wise fool" character, bringing about change in the lives of those he meets, yet seemingly unable to evaluate any of the events or relationships in his own life. In essence the film is of a man, not a hero or anti-hero, who is guided by a higher power, of which he himself is unaware. I think that could be said of any of us at any given time and it only serves to beatify our lives when we are in our darkest moments.
No comments:
Post a Comment