My Own Private Idaho

MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO                 B+              

USA  (104 mi)  1991  d:  Gus van Sant

Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo
You're living in your own Private Idaho
Living in your own Private Idaho
Underground like a wild potato.
Don't go on the patio.
Beware of the pool,
blue bottomless pool.
It leads you straight
right throught the gate
that opens on the pool.
You're living in your own Private Idaho.
You're living in your own Private Idaho.

Keep off the path, beware the gate,
watch out for signs that say "hidden driveways".
Don't let the chlorine in your eyes
blind you to the awful surprise
that's waitin' for you at
the bottom of the bottomless blue blue blue pool.

You're livin in your own Private Idaho. Idaho.
You're out of control, the rivers that roll,
you fell into the water and down to Idaho.
Get out of that state,
get out of that state you're in.
You better beware.

You're living in your own Private Idaho.
You're living in your own Private Idaho.

Keep off the patio,
keep off the path.
The lawn may be green
but you better not be seen
walkin' through the gate that leads you down,
down to a pool fraught with danger
is a pool full of strangers.

You're living in your own Private Idaho,
where do I go from here to a better state than this.
Well, don't be blind to the big surprise
swimming round and round like the deadly hand
of a radium clock, at the bottom, of the pool.

I-I-I-daho
I-I-I-daho
Woah oh oh woah oh oh woah oh oh
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
Get out of that state
Get out of that state
You're living in your own Private Idaho,
livin in your own Private.... Idaho

B-52's Private Idaho - YouTube  (3:21), 1980                           

I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world. 

—Mike Waters (River Phoenix)

This is an extremely personalized vision, only van Sant’s third film, but the one that offers him the largest range of expression, using the entire cinema vocabulary, as he knew it, supposedly inspired by the B-52’s song B-52's Private Idaho - YouTube  (3:21), creating this odd, truly off-the-wall, mystifyingly unique film, but one that sets the foundation for so many van Sant themes that he would continue to return to throughout his career, like loneliness, adolescence, alienation, sexuality, gay love, freedom, identity, and outsiderism.  But here it’s like there’s no tomorrow, so he throws everything into this film, cramming it with surrealistic detail and stylish flourish, using a documentary style realism mixed with an experimental or underground feel, using a frequent return to dream sequences, some of which resemble home movie memories, while others are more surrealistic where buildings fly and porn magazines talk, mixing plenty of street slang and improvised dialogue with bits of Shakespearean reference to Falstaff and Prince Hal’s musings from Henry IV, where the weakness may be the sense that it’s not really about anything, that it’s allowed to drift, not so much telling a story as aimlessly airing out one’s imagination, reflected in the vast emptiness of a road movie.  The heart of the film lies in the central character, River Phoenix as Mike, something of a gay outsider and perpetual outcast, whose tormented and anguished manner very much resembles James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955), right down to that reddish jacket he wears throughout the picture.  Both couldn’t be more conflicted about the troubled world of adolescence, where adults seem to have lost their ability to care or express their feelings, leaving a void of indifference.  Only here Mike’s parents are completely absent, more like the Sal Mineo character, leaving a profound emptiness that can never be filled, reflecting an eternally damaged soul that can only drift through life on the strength of his own perseverance and imagination.

Mike suffers from narcolepsy, where conflict and aggravated stress cause him to pass out, which comes on much like a seizure, leaving him openly vulnerable and alone on the side of the road.  For most of the film, his best friend Scott (Keanu Reeves) picks him up and comes to his aid, where they run the streets together as male sex hustlers, picking up customers whenever they can, where Mike’s condition is bad for business, but Scott is there to cover his tracks.  Scott is the Prince Hal heir to the throne, as he’s the mayor’s son, but rejects all the trappings of wealth and status and prefers the freedom of running the streets, partying and getting high with a gang of homeless misfits living in a vacated condemned building, where they have their own street mayor, Bob (William Richert), who’s the Falsaff king of the drunks, prone to tales with excessive exaggeration, usually the butt of all jokes.  The true standout of this group is the 92-year old Sally Curtice as Jane Lightwork, whose spry wit would happily fill any movie screen, making the rest seem like pure amateurs in comparison.  But for true eccentricity, no one is any weirder than Udo Kier as Hans, a strange guy who keeps popping up in this movie, if for no other reason than he stands for the old world style of male hustler, now more settled and refined, but still a connoisseur of young boys.  Moving periodically from Seattle to Portland to Idaho, Scott and Mike hit the road on a whim in search of Mike’s long lost mother, leaving behind the strange and eccentric sexual practices of their seedy customers who certainly add bold new images to the idea of peculiar.  Again it’s Udo Kier that takes the cake with his own spectacularly deviate rendition of a lamp dance, seen here:  Mr. Hans performs Der Adler (My Own Private Idaho) - YouTube (1:30).

The overriding theme of the film seems to be expressed by the crushing isolation of River Phoenix’s character, where perhaps the moment of the film is a stunning campfire sequence with Keanu Reeves, largely improvised by Phoenix, where he accepts initially that they’re best friends, but slowly acknowledges that he feels a deeper personal connection, where the setting of the two of them under a darkened sky out on the open road adds even more to the special poignancy of the moment.  It’s an interesting contrast between the two characters as they seem to be breaking new ground but in separate ways, an agonizingly intense confession for one, while something of a strange and awkward moment for the other.  Eventually the search for Mike’s mother takes them to a remote farm in Italy, where like a scene out of THE GODFATHER (1972), Scott immediately falls in love with a beautiful young Italian girl Carmelia (Chiara Caselli), where he has a belated effect from the campfire scene, leaving Mike all alone once again to fend for himself.  Van Sant curiously intersperses various sequences with patriotic music, like America the Beautiful, adding a touch of personal irony when needed.  The Shakespearean coronation takes place when Scott acquires his inheritance upon turning 21, where the world of money and prestige and a lovely new girlfriend leads him through the open doors of affluence and social distinction, leaving the world of Bob and the underground street misfits behind, having no use for them anymore.  It’s a disquieting moment, made all the more chilling by Keanu Reeves and his impassive yet typically wooden expression.  In the end, love may come and go, but all you have is yourself, the open road in front of you, and the freedom to take it.