New Jerusalem

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🎙️ EPISODE 276: 07.13.2020 Where The Builder left the previously nameless Colm O'Leary (Alverson's own Richmond, VA), we begin again here. This is not the same person–his hair is shorter, he's been to war, an Irishman fighting on the side of the U.S. National Guard in Afghanistan, and he has a name (Sean)–but it's impossible not to see these films as a pair. This film examines religion as the chosen method to conquer the void 1. It begins with a quote from the New King James translation of the Book of Revelation...

This cuts at the heart of the evangelical sensibility embodied by our foil, a fellow tire shop employee played by Will Oldham (Ike). It's not enough to live a life of pure faith for oneself. The evangelical must actively seek pillars to prop up his house of faith. If he fails, than he is no better, no different. It's a different kind of building, whether it's for a pyramid scheme or a temple of enlightenment is the question.

Sean is wrecked by PTSD-induced anxiety and depression and is torn between remedies, old (beer and Walt Whitman) and new (man to man feet-washing and homemade Bible readings on cassette tape). Oldham is deadpan creepy in the role of Ike. His pursuit of Sean is quietly psychotic. In one scene, they are having dinner at Ike's father's. Sean is deeply endeared by his dad, clearly more in search of a father figure than a brother.

While Oldham is well-known from his career as a musician (Bonnie "Prince" Billy, among various aliases) in addition to prominent roles in a smattering of mostly 00s era indies, he's a good actor who could probably be a great one if he gave himself over to the medium. But O'Leary is an enigma. His credits barely stretch beyond these two films (in addition to co-writing them AND Alverson's 2019 picture, The Mountain), and yet, he's tremendously natural onscreen despite this inexperience. In fact, his performances are crucial; they're everything and they wouldn't work without him. It's as collaborative an effort as you'll find at the movies.

The battle of Sean in the face of such dread and misery is sold as a two-faced one: faith and following on the one side and psychology and substances, both pharmaceutical and otherwise, on the other (or: God's Law vs. Man's Law). The conflict isn't necessarily between them though; rather, Sean is weary of the sale's pitch on both ends. It's a "give and take" proposition. Man's Law provides the question in the form of a series of acquisitions and/or mergers: adopt this cat? take the doctor's RX for Benzodiazepine? sleep with the convenience store clerk you see out at the bar smoking cigarettes with fingerless gloves? All God's Law wants is your soul. The simplicity of the choice is a lie.

During one of Ike's final pitches, he lays it all out there, but it's starting to show that even he's not necessarily buying what he's selling...

If anything was so effortless. Keep in mind, this character, this weird character and performance by Oldham, has previously been rude to service workers and strangers; he walks through life with a casual rudeness. His only focus is salvation, and he can only get that if he “saves” this fellow man, a co-worker from Ireland. It’s an obsession of convenience, chance. He's still at the bottom rung of the pyramid scheme.

Alverson isn't necessarily making the case that religion is fundamentally bad, but he's certainly not countering that sentiment either. New Jerusalem ends with Sean out for a run, unclear where he's headed, or what exactly he's running away from.

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FOOTNOTES:
1. I've addressed this further with my Director Focus piece on Rick Alverson, which I implore you to check out if you have any interest. [BACK]

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 276A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 277A ⫸

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