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"Old Joy," the understated, quiet tale of two old friends reuniting for an overnight trip to a hot springs hidden deep in an Oregon old-growth forest.
As with the director's subsequent masterstroke, "Wendy and Lucy," this film proceeds with the deliberateness of a Greek tragedy though there is no resolution, no dramatic overstatement. Rather, the accumulation of silences, quiet references, and expressions detonate at film's end like an unseen left hook to the cerebellum.
Daniel London and singer Will Oldham portray the reunited old friends who have none of the obvious trappings of the bourgeoisie but still are oppressed by personal isolation.
Blah, blah, blah. This film, like an Asian philosophy, is more about silence than noise. You must see it with an open mind, prepared for a very different sort of experience than a typical Hollywood or even indie one. It is all but impossible to describe its qualities or quality.
I agree with the many reviewers who placed it on the year's best lists.
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...I've seen in a while. A poor-man's Malick, if you will. No gratuitous voilence, nudity and music cues and cutesy language to tell you how to think and feel - different in a good way.
She got better, I thought, in the jump from "Old Joy" to "Wendy". "OJ" was not my cup of tea; the "time and maturity's effect on a friendship" idea was kinda overshadowed by the spoiled-white-kid-turned-yuppie and slacker characterizations. Those guys get old fast, probably cause they seem to be everywhere (at least on the left coast, that is).
hint at his original class. I also see nothing intrinsically less interesting about those in alternate lifestyles. Do you need some sort of business reference to make a character interesting? What is more intriguing than a person rejecting an entire culture's main and overwhelming, defining paradigm? But Oldham, I'm sure you know, is a very successful folk singer in "real life."
As for Malick, I find him to be a pretentious bore. And he has a way of working with the worst actors around, i.e. Nolte, Caveziel (sp?), Gere, Shepard.
...put in "real life" perspective the problems were a bit hard to relate to and thereby even care about completely.
A very "American" movie, I suppose.
But, as with Malick, to each his own.
universal. I mean friendship, which I could argue is the MAIN topic. Long separated friends--- who have pursued different lives--- get together with expectations of resuming the connection. But as they speak and interact, the divisions--- though obliquely stated and reflected--- appear to be deeper and less easily bridged. The ending is a jolt.
I realized this after the second viewing; the first time around, I was fell victim to the easy pacing, the visual beauty.
Like an Oregon river, the clear waters disguise cold and possibly deadly currents.
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