Ok. I’m finally home with my friendly bourbon, some candles lit, my laptop and a very empty house that hums. It’s not that I regret anything I did today. It isn’t that the day lacked enjoyment. But I’m so much happy to be here that I have to wonder why I didn’t get here sooner.
I came out of a screening of “Soldate Jeannette” during the Q&A but still a bit early so that my friend Jennette could have some gravity again. There were several though who left during the movie.
It’s true, the pace was challenging. It’s not true that not much happened. It is true that it took a while for it to not not happen. This wasn’t the movie we’re used to seeing.
We don’t actually wait in movies. We see signs that the movie waited but we don’t actually just wait on a lock off wide shot with the characters. This movie breathed. It waited. And while it waited, the audience left.
I don’t know what people were thinking. Maybe they were looking for steak and potatoes; maybe that’s why they left. But it’s Sundance. Independent film. Something different. You shouldn’t go to a fruit tree and curse it when you can’t find the bacon.
I appreciated those shots. One woman’s entire monologue was a beautiful wide and close shot of the back of her neck. Her pearl necklace almost bobbing with her speech. Like a leaf on a sleepy lake. It was a very almost moment, a not-quite moment, a moment without grip on it that gripped you and held you mid-jump.
There was a scene at night in the forest. A woman enters and closes her tent. She finds her place with her flashlight. The camera is outside, just sitting there, blank and un-opinionated. You see a light move around and then go out. It was absolute black. There was no “moon light.” No blue edge. It was beautiful. It was frank.
Probably the most pivotal arc of the story, the 3rd act or 4th act transformation, the moment between the springboard and the foam pad is told in song while the cows make their way up a hill. The camera is fixed to its spot. The scene was maybe four minutes. Four minutes of a bunch of cows coming up a hill while the brass section and the singer had a call and response. It was beautiful.
Then I stepped outside.
Outside from this inside of trolling cows to the worst outside street long college frat party dense with almost-dead cell phones, furs and a swirly-eyed-looking for the next swag, the next party. Thumpy candy music, high heeled sparkle boots, blonde hair, frantic drunk people trying to fill up the small sidewalks and push out the empty spaces. And smokers, so many smokers. It’s amazing that people still do that.
So and but for now, it’s nice to be home.