PRINCE AVALANCHE B+
USA (94 mi) 2013
‘Scope d: David Gordon Green
True love is like a
ghost. Everyone talks about it, but few have ever seen it.
I reap the rewards of
solitude… I write letters to your sister, I read, I paint, I sew, I had a cat,
so I used to take care of my pet, before it was killed. I have a lot of
prescription medications, but I try not to use them.
—Alvin (Paul Rudd)
Here’s to fire in our
hearts. Drink up boys. I love the impurities. Mother may I? Yes I may! —Truck driver (Lance LeGault)
Thank God in heaven that David Gordon Green is back to
making indie movies, and this is a beaut…gorgeously sublime, beautifully shot
by Green’s longtime cinematographer Tim Orr, a film about making something out
of nothing. The inspiration comes from
the devastating aftermath of a 1987 central Texas wildfire laying waste to
43,000 acres, destroying 1600 homes. Set
in the following year, the trees remain starkly barren, but there’s plenty of
growth in the underbrush. Largely
philosophical, yet told in a naturalistic manner, perhaps on the surface this
is the most simplistic film Green’s ever made, but filled with implications and
moral conflicts. Adapted from a Hafsteinn
Gunnar Sigurðsson Icelandic movie entitled EITHER WAY (2011), though one is not
exactly sure how this rather awkwardly medieval American title was chosen
(though there is a reference to a prince who has been banished from his kingdom),
sounding a bit more like one of the Merry Men in Robin Hood, though this film has a modernist 20th century bent to
it, feeling more like something out of the existential absurdity of Beckett or
Ionescu. The film is about two poor
bastards who are stuck working out in the open on a roadside highway construction
crew helping rebuild roads cutting straight through the natural devastation,
whose job is to paint the yellow lines on the newly paved asphalt over an
endless stretch of highway, then glue street reflectors in between, while also
placing reflector signposts along the way.
Living a rustic life in a two-man tent along the side of the road, Alvin
(Paul Rudd) is the more serious senior partner, the roadside boss, while his
underling Lance (Emile Hirsch) shows little aptitude for living outdoors, behaving
more like a kid with attention deficit disorder, claiming he’s horny all the
time and can’t wait to get back to the city during his time off on weekends.
Shot in just 16 days, the film is a minimalist display of an
economy of means, opening with an extended wordless sequence where the
paramount expression throughout is David Wingo’s superb musical score written
for the instrumental accompaniment of the Austin-based band Explosions in the
Sky, where we immediately rediscover this director’s natural affinity for
poetic expression, beautifully balancing sound and image before a single word
is spoken. Despite occasional retreats back
into silence, this is a dialogue driven character study that is haunted by the
natural environment that envelops them. Neither
character easily expresses their emotions, both hiding behind a façade of
convention, where Alvin pretends to know what he’s doing, as it sounds like he
always has a reasonable plan, but he’s undercut by his own lack of spontaneity
and fun, while Lance is a happy-go-lucky kid that only thinks about sex, as if
it’s the only inner drive that matters, yet he also has a contemplative side
that he never admits to, as it has little to do with how to score with
women. As these two guys spend every
waking hour together, it’s only natural they’d eventually get on each other’s
nerves, which parallels the boredom and monotony of carrying out the same repetitive
task over and over again, day after day, where the tedium keeps them on edge as
well. While these are the surface
realities, the film actually explores the human drama taking place inside each
of their lives, where they couldn’t be more different, as Alvin has to plan his
every move, while Lance just goes with the flow, relying on his natural
instincts to carry him through. While
their lives are slowly evolving, there are subtle intrusions from outside
forces that continually alter the landscape just enough to keep the characters
(and the audience) off balance, where in one of the more curious sections, in
the ruins of a burned out home, Alvin acts out his imaginary good life with his
future wife.
Perhaps most fun are the surprise visits by aging truck
driver Lance LeGault, (who died during the making of the film, receiving a
dedication notice in the final credits), who hauls heavy loads through the
construction zone, often stopping to hand out bottles of moonshine to the work
crew while also dishing out various pearls of wisdom before disappearing into
the night. Most mysterious are the
repeated appearances by a ghostlike Joyce Payne as The Lady, an elderly woman pained
by the fact she lost everything in a fire that destroyed her home, where all
that’s left are quickly disappearing memories.
“Sometimes I think that I’m digging in my own ashes.” Initially viewed by Alvin, who helps her
search for lost belongings in the wreckage of her home, later she has a near
apparition appearance with the Truck driver, who refuses to acknowledge her
presence, though they are often seen together by Alvin and Lance. In fact, by the end, they both feel like
ghosts in denial of their own existence.
Serving as an unlikely interconnection, symbolic of their own as yet undetermined
future, caught in the purgatory of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, an inescapable hell on earth, the aging couple’s
fading illusions serve as a reminder that our young friends are heading for a
similar catastrophe, as Alvin doesn’t understand what his own girlfriend really
wants, while Lance continually idealizes his perfect companion. The dreams of both are heading for certain destruction
unless they drop all pretensions and somehow start to actually care about the
lives of others. Afraid to leave their selfish
comfort zones, both couldn’t be more vulnerable and awkwardly naked on display
out in the middle of the emptiness of a desolate landscape that somehow retains
its illuminating vibrancy. Through a
wall of branchless trees still standing, a thriving forest remains in spite of
the apocalyptic signs of destruction. Similarly, when all hope is lost, these two numbskulls
literally rise from the ashes and have the chance to walk upon a new day. There are no illusions that anything will get
any better, but having shared and endured each other’s most tragic flaws, they
seem better prepared to meet whatever lies beyond the curve of the road and
face the unexpected future.
