 |
| Writer/director Marian Mathias |
 |
| actress Hannah Schiller |
 |
| Mathias with producer Joy Jorgensen |
 |
| Jorgensen and Mathias |
RUNNER B USA France Germany (76 mi) 2022 d: Marian Mathias
Shot on grainy 16mm by Jomo Fray with an almost square screen, nearly every shot of this low-budget film is accentuated darkness, among the darkest films on record, with barely any hint of light or signs of hope, while the flat landscape of a nameless place in Missouri reveals nothing but foreboding skies, creating a grim, yet austere frame for this near wordless film drenched in poetic imagery, resembling the abstract mosaic of Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), where the overpowering force of nature dwarfs any human presence, yet a two-story farmhouse home rises elegantly in its statuesque stillness, the only home seen for miles in an isolated community composed of mostly German immigrant families. What’s different is an ominous presence of gloom that mysteriously inundates the screen instead of the luminous beauty in Malick. This dour outlook may take viewers by surprise, refusing to tell a conventional story, or write intelligible dialogue, allowing the pictures to tell the story, with overcast skies leading to downpours of rain, casting a bleak shadow on the itinerant lives that grace the screen. More abstract than a typical first feature, yet the concise nature of this 75-minute film eliminates all excess and sentimentality, becoming an exercise in brevity, where you have to admire the tenacity of making a film few will ever see, with no real character development or drama, yet it's starkly different from anything else out there, so film festivals may be the only available outlet. Haas (Hannah Schiller), meaning rabbit or runner in Dutch, is a tender 18-year old girl raised by a cantankerous single father, Alvin (Jonathan Erickson Eisley), who seems to be something of an alcoholic con man or schemer, trying to swindle money out of people that don’t have it, specifically targeting the local preacher, showing up with his daughter in church, then singling him out after the services, pestering him with fabricated land opportunities, trying to entice him in his latest financial scheme, but the preacher deftly avoids him, claiming it’s God’s day. So instead Alvin spends the day getting drunk in a local bar, muttering to himself when he loses his key and is locked out of his own home, so he breaks a window and crawls in, immediately calling the preacher on the phone at his home, blabbing away with no real regard to whoever’s listening, revealing just how alienated and reclusive he’s become, using the preacher as some sort of sounding board for his cockamamie ideas and stream-of-conscious ramblings until the preacher hangs up on him, leaving him alone in the dark. Soon afterwards he tumbles from the top of the stairs, falling to his death, as a few neighbors congregate on the bottom edge of the frame, where only the backs of their heads are seen, a Greek chorus arriving and staring at their empty mansion, busybodies gossiping about what happened, wondering if he would have died if the girl was home, wondering where she was and why she was away. It’s a sad state of affairs, with death adding a dismal edge to the already gloomy atmosphere, where Haas is often seen trudging through the desolate roads, a solitary figure walking long distances on her own, becoming a defining motif. Receiving a 30% tax credit from the State of Illinois, the dreary windswept landscape resembles Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011), another father and daughter team on the edge of the apocalypse, where the oppressive force of nature continually closes in on them.
Haas quickly learns that the bank is about to foreclose on their home due to unpaid back payments, while it was her father’s wish to be buried in his home town, a tiny Illinois hamlet along the Mississippi River, traveling with the coffin by train, including a shot from the darkness of an open door on the train looking down on the illuminated world outside, reminiscent of a similar shot in John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS (1956), where the only available housing is a decrepit old boarding house, described as an inn, run by a fussy old geezer (Gene Jones) who spends his time dozing off on the couch while watching old black and white movies on TV. The emptiness of the surroundings couldn’t be more austere, with barely any trees on the horizon, just empty cornfields, with Haas seen walking along an isolated rural road, when a man on a bicycle offers to give her a ride, as it’s about to storm. By the time they get to the protective shelter of the inn both are drenched from a downpour, with her newfound friend, Will (Darren Houle), waiting out the storm until he can safely return home, needing to get to work the next morning. Haas, left to bury her father alone, is disappointed that the burial keeps getting postponed due to inclement weather conditions, as the graves fill with water during the storms, needing time to dry out, extending her time spent in what seems like the middle of nowhere. One could easily understand why her father felt the need to move away, as there is nothing holding anyone to this community. Haas meets Will again, spending time romping through the cornfields, opening up to each other, discovering hidden secrets, yet it’s not the conversation that elicits information, instead the imagery infuses the film with the first signs of anything resembling hope, even as the darkened skies continue to provide an oppressive tone, concentrating on immense cloud formations, where the skies take up more than 90% of the frame, leaving humans on the ground submerged in the enormity of their surroundings. While there’s a poetic interplay in the cornfields where he teaches her to sing I Saw the Light (Remastered) - YouTube (2:43), a country gospel song with a gritty working class sentiment, sung by a faithless man searching for redemption, they quickly learn about each other’s lives, both distanced and estranged from their families, with Will frequently calling home in the solitary confines of his room, sending them money, remaining connected with the people that matter to him, yet he continues to find work in distant places, like migrant workers following the seasons, where this blustery cold fails to provide many opportunities. He repairs an old bike from a junk pile so he and Haas can ride their bikes together, exploring the barren roads in long silences, often resembling the last two souls living on earth. The aching loneliness of their lives defines who they are, and connects them in small ways, never really expressing romantic inclinations, remaining tenuous at best, but there are no other emotional connections in the entire film, making them the centerpiece of a largely untold drama, awakening feelings both felt no longer existed, stirring something deep in their souls, but neither one seems inclined to act on it. Instead, the darkened imagery of the immensely flat landscape holds sway over everything we see, with brief musical interludes from Para One, who composed the music for Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021).
By the time Alvin is actually buried Haas has lost interest, having showed up so many times, only to be told the burial would be delayed, leaving a kind of numb experience, as if disconnected from the world, where a looming departure is uneventful, feeling inevitable. Will takes a job on a Mississippi riverboat that floats up and down the river in a neverending journey, allowing him to watch the continuously elusive shoreline from the decks, a veritable Huckleberry Finn adventure, never intermingling with the river towns that dot the shoreline. This adds a dreaminess quality to the film, drifting along the river, always distanced from what he sees, with lights along the shore appearing like specks in the dark. When Haas returns home, back to the same house, the neighbors re-appear on the edge of the frame, describing her pitiful state, having no one left in the world, where the repossession of the home looms over the horizon and could happen any day now. The preacher describes the distressing mental state of her father as “his roof wasn’t nailed tight,” claiming someone needed to tell her the truth, but it’s probably nothing she doesn’t already know, as the instability of the surrounding world is slowly creeping in on her, thinking of Will, with visions of him watching the shoreline from the boat, perhaps looking for her face, leaving her hopeful for the future and the possibilities that may await her. Searching for herself in all the photographs and memorabilia, the film raises the existential question of where she really belongs, and just what exactly is her community. The Greek chorus of onlookers don’t appear invested in her life, watching from afar, never offering to help, never once befriending her in her loneliness and grief, leaving her to wallow in her own sorrows on her own. Train whistles can be heard off in the distance, as if beckoning her to take another journey, to experience life outside the smothering claustrophobic walls of a house that doesn’t even belong to her, yet it’s all she knows. Then, inexplicably, she bolts out the door, running as fast as she can, chasing that elusive dream that lies just ahead of her, as a freight train meanders over the horizon, and flocks of geese fly in formation across the sky. The loneliness and complete isolation of these lives become an exploration of tenderness and quiet desperation, yet may not be a film for everyone, requiring patience and reflection, as it’s never emotionally engaging or dramatically compelling, but lures us in from the power of the imagery, resembling the month of November, eloquently recalled in a scene from Sydney Pollack’s THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975) when Robert Redford describes what he sees in the black and white photographs of Faye Dunaway, “You take pictures, beautiful pictures, but of empty streets, and trees with no leaves on them. Not quite winter, they look like November. Not autumn, not winter, in between,” also reminiscent of the stark emptiness of Andrew Wyeth landscape paintings, Andrew Wyeth. Christina's World. 1948 - MoMA. Almost entirely a state of mind, this film pushes the edges of what a film can be, reduced to a bare minimalism, yet the essence of the film is unrealized possibilities, where a murky ambiguity clouds the troubled early days of a coming-of-age story.
