Kelly Reichardt's second feature film is aptly lumped in with the 'mumblecore' crowd of independent films that have improvisational dialog (or maybe, more than Cassavetes, that people just make s*** up on the spot on set) and a kind of anything-goes attitude towards the story. This isn't to say that Old Joy doesn't have a place it's going towards, since it's so short a feature as to not have a lot of place to roam... at least, not from its main trajectory, which is that two friends in their thirties- one a father-to-be with an anxious wife and the other a stoner with a lot of dreams and physics information- go to the woods in Oregon and hang out. It's not hyperbole to say that 'nothing happens', though I'm sure there are a lot of things going on under the surface, in-between what is said, and in those pauses Reichardt takes to film nature.
In other words, it's kind of like Ozu-lite, only with its meaning being not as easy to read really. A lot of audiences and critics find more than, frankly, I could find in it. If you do see a whole plethora of meditative brilliance in it, I'm genuinely happy for you with your experience. And if you curse it to hades I understand as well. For me, it was somewhere in the middle. The cinematography is gorgeous, even when its just driving along and shooting the outside woods or Oregon city-scape at night, and the Yo la Tengo music evokes a kind of somber-but-cool spirit that works well for the material. Perhaps I was hoping, yes even with a 'minimalist' mumblecore movie, that more *there* was there. What else is there to these two guys except the possibility that they might see each other a little less now that one is having a kid and the other goes amblin' around?
A friend of mine laid it down even better for me, in an odd way: it's kind of like a video game, where it's more about the architecture of things, be it the woods or just the low-rent areas in Oregon that Reichardt filmed, with the soundtrack being either moody guitar or angry political dialog on the radio. I really do appreciate the effort of the filmmaker, in its own way its even ambitious to be so simple with things. But at the same time I wish there was more *there* there with the characters, their conflict, which was not a problem with Reichardt's follow-up Wendy & Lucy - and that was just a girl and her dog!
In other words, it's kind of like Ozu-lite, only with its meaning being not as easy to read really. A lot of audiences and critics find more than, frankly, I could find in it. If you do see a whole plethora of meditative brilliance in it, I'm genuinely happy for you with your experience. And if you curse it to hades I understand as well. For me, it was somewhere in the middle. The cinematography is gorgeous, even when its just driving along and shooting the outside woods or Oregon city-scape at night, and the Yo la Tengo music evokes a kind of somber-but-cool spirit that works well for the material. Perhaps I was hoping, yes even with a 'minimalist' mumblecore movie, that more *there* was there. What else is there to these two guys except the possibility that they might see each other a little less now that one is having a kid and the other goes amblin' around?
A friend of mine laid it down even better for me, in an odd way: it's kind of like a video game, where it's more about the architecture of things, be it the woods or just the low-rent areas in Oregon that Reichardt filmed, with the soundtrack being either moody guitar or angry political dialog on the radio. I really do appreciate the effort of the filmmaker, in its own way its even ambitious to be so simple with things. But at the same time I wish there was more *there* there with the characters, their conflict, which was not a problem with Reichardt's follow-up Wendy & Lucy - and that was just a girl and her dog!