“Old Joy’s rhythmic contemplation will pull you right down inside it, almost painfully, but ultimately in uplifting and surprising ways,” writes MELODY NIXON of Kelly Reichardt’s spiritual, minimalist revelation.


IN THIS SLOW moving indie flick each line that goes unsaid is worth the weight of a hundred lines in any other, more verbose film. Old Joy is a minimalist study in spirit-filled, natural imagery, and emotion; its moments of detached discontent contain both exuberant and mournful glimpses into the darker side of peace. That is, peace how Fellini’s La Dolce Vita character Steiner describes it; “a thin cover, stretched across an abyss”. Old Joy is joy gone stale, and joy that is afraid of the spark it has lost.

Folk-punk musician Will Oldham plays Kurt, the seeming-free wanderer, who is ‘in town’ and wants to meet up with the stifled, father-to-be Mark (Daniel London). The two old friends decide to head into the woods for the weekend, to find hidden and cathartic Bagby Hot Springs, a place no other, Kurt says, for free thinking. As night falls, Kurt’s mantra becomes “It’s definitely around here somewhere,” as he rolls up in the passenger seat. Mark struggles to deal with his friend’s cavalier attitude and too with his own impulse to retreat into the safety of sorrow.

As the story progresses however, it appears that Mark’s sorrow is as questionable as Kurt’s freedom; the real issue is the simple fact they’re both different people now. Writer Jon Raymond, on whose short story the film is based, says Old Joy is a “Cain and Abel story in reverse”. In the “Garden of Eden,” at Bagby hot springs, the two friends do not find hatred or malice. When at the end of the road trip Mark returns home to commitment and Kurt returns to wandering the streets, their roles seem to have almost flipped; the final shot creates a moment of vivid, poetic ambiguity.

What little dialogue used to communicate this story is sparse and often does not contact with the target it is directed at. Instead much of the emotion and disconnect is conveyed though cinematography, shot on a tiny handheld A-Minima camera. What is unsaid, as the friends gaze out windows and walk through woods, conveys the real meaning. Meditative studies of nature bring a feeling of closeness and minimalism. Cruising car-window views of Oregon countryside combine with shots of awkward, criss-crossing angles and lines to create powerful feelings of trapped detachment. These shots also subtly invoke elements of that emotion the Portuguese call saudade: nostalgia mixed with self-deceptive hope.

At times the film evokes a kind of new neo-realism, in the view of ordinary characters amongst the prosaic details that define their lives; no matter how far characters like Kurt see themselves removed from the prosaic. Both Oldham and London’s acting is fluid and strong, each actor seemingly playing themselves in daily life. Interestingly, and as testament to this, Will Oldham felt drawn to both roles in the film, identifying strongly with the overwhelmed and fragile Mark, who “holds onto stuff, man”. After several months of discussions he settled on Kurt, partly because many of the “Kurt-like” friends he had suggested fill that role were in fact too Kurt-like to be gotten hold of in their hippie-vans or phone-less wanderings. Oldham’s bold comfort in the role of Kurt then, and London’s complementary understatement as Mark, show their skill as impressive.

Beyond the slick acting and camera work, Old Joy is a film which bears interpretation on deeper levels than emotional impact and visual aesthetic. Director Kelly Reichardt has described Oldham’s self-satisfied character as a great metaphor for the “ineffectualness of the Left” in the United States, particularly during the years of wide-spread public support for the Iraq war. However, the film’s simple “depictions of the American landscape and narratives of the road”, in the words of Reichardt, carry enough weight to sustain it and sustain it well. Old Joy’s rhythmic contemplation will pull you right down inside it, almost painfully, but ultimately in uplifting and surprising ways.

See also:
» Will Oldham: An Appreciation