River of Grass

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🎙️ EPISODE 301: 02.05.2021 I was so pleasantly surprised by this amazing film! The first things I thought upon completion was how on earth did Kelly Reichardt go over a decade before making a second full-length feature. The answer proved depressing: I had 10 years from the mid-1990s when I couldn’t get a movie made. It had a lot to do with being a woman. That’s definitely a factor in raising money. During that time, it was impossible to get anything going, so I just said, ‘Fuck you!’ and did Super 8 shorts instead.

I did not know what to expect going into this one. As it turned out, it's vastly different than any of her 21st century films, both stylistically and tonally. Employing a voiceover, more cartoonish characters, and set in the Florida Everglades, which feel like a completely different planet compared to the Pacific Northwest of her later work, River of Grass is still an astounding debut. Featuring not a single "name" actor (well, unless you count Steve Buscemi's brother Michael), it relies on Reichardt's deft touch behind the wheel. While the performances do feel amateurish, it also feels like that was the point; they fully jive with tenor of the film. It's refreshing, honestly. The characters are all blank slates at a dead end, and Lisa Donaldson and Larry Fessenden, in the lead roles, embody that sense.

Reichardt has described the film as a “road movie without the road, a love story without the love, and a crime story without the crime,” and that’s a perfect description. The themes might not appear parallel but they are. It isn't about the conflict but specifically about how conflict is not so easily resolved, is often never resolved at all. And all we're left with is the struggle and it's deep, eternal, unending, and something we have to live with if we're gonna choose to keep living. It’s a movie about frustration, a subject that will reoccur again and again throughout her filmography.

Part of the... Ranking Kelly Reichardt Series – #6

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 300x - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 302A ⫸

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