Tommyland Hall of Fame: Trust

Before Bravo became home to oh-so-polished reality shows like Top Chef and Project Runway (well, not anymore but still), it was once a showcase for independent-minded programming. Don’t remember? It’s true. It’s where I first developed my love for indie films, and I still remember the film that started it all: “Trust” directed by Hal Hartley.

I think I was flipping through the channels when I came across it on Bravo one night; I do remember that it was the opening credits that stopped my trigger-happy, channel-surfing finger, namely the song that was playing. It was a low-key but still rockin’ song I had never heard before.

Then the film started, with a close-up of a pretty, heavily made-up, but unsmiling teenaged girl (that would be Maria, iconically played by the late Adrienne Shelley who also made a great directing debut with Waitress before tragically being murdered; R.I.P.). In a matter of moments, the following happens: she announces she’s pregnant, her parents are shocked, her father calls her a slut, she slaps him and runs out of the house, then the father collapses in shock and dies. Over-the-top melodrama? Hardly. Hal Hartley frames the actors’ dialogue like no one else, every remark is as pointed as a needle, every word filled with cool meaning. In Hartley-land, everyone knows exactly what they’re saying and why; irony is used deftly and with perfect timing; everyone outwardly seems cool and detached until they reach the point of no return. I was riveted.

Maria soon goes on a downward spiral, struggling to remain her detached coolness as she gets blown off by her football jock boyfriend, finds about her father’s death and gets kicked out of the house by her Mother from Hell (a mesmerizing Merritt Nelson), has a brief conversation with a bizarre woman who goes on to kidnap a baby, then barely escapes from a sexual assault-minded shopkeeper by jabbing him in the eye with her cigarette. All in all, she’s not in good shape when she comes across a not-so-mentally-stable-himself Matthew Slaughter.

Matthew is an interesting character indeed. He’s essentially a rebel and a social misfit in the mold of James Dean and Marlon Brando, but he becomes less recognizably stereotypical and more intriguing due to the actor playing him: Martin Donovan, whose Britishness and kinda-handsome-kinda-blobby looks add more meat to the role. Matthew, who we’ve seen jam his supervisor’s head in a vise at work in defense of his ideals, walks into an abandoned house, ostensibly to hang out after getting fired, and sees Maria. They have the following nihilistic exchange:

Maria: What do you want?
Matthew: I don’t want anything.
Maria: Why not?
Matthew: Because I don’t think anything’s going to help.

Soon enough, Maria and Matthew develop a relationship based on trust, if not love, and they help each other deal with the complex evil of their parents (her mom, his dad). The plot continues to develop, revolving around Maria’s pregnancy, Matthew’s uncomfortable search for respectability and health benefits (for Maria’s sake), the aforementoned kidnapped baby, Maria’s mother’s scheme to have Matthew end up with Maria’s older sister, and the grenade Matthew likes to always have around “just in case.” In the end, it’s all about the two main characters’ interactions and dialogues with each other and how their limits and their trust are tested time and time again by the world around them. It’s not exactly a love story, perhaps a little less, but in my opinion, a lot more. In other words, it’s a classic.

Here’s the song from the opening credits (not quite as awesome as the movie, but pretty close):

Hub Moore & the Great Outdoors – Walk Away

That’s One Cocky Comb…

I’m enjoying a 5-day weekend thanks to Children’s Day (a national holiday here in Korea) and an extra school holiday. I was considering a first-time trip to Tokyo, but I decided to stay home and save my money after my recent shopping spree (the tennis racket and mp3 player).

Nonetheless, the long weekend’s been pretty darn nice. I had dinner with my two aunts last night and I’ve made a long-procrastinated return to the gym. I also went over to check out a Gustav Klimt exhibit at the Seoul Arts Center (my impressions: Klimt was a genius, and he sure loved women, glamorizing his portraits to the hilt).

I’ve also spent much of the time in quiet seclusion, writing for this site, cleaning my studio apartment, reading The Native Son (very compelling and still quite relevant), and watching the following movies on my video player:

– Surveillance:

As can be expected from being directed by David Lynch’s daughter, it’s a strange, disturbing movie with an even more disturbingly strange performance from Bill Pullman. It’s bizarre to see the messed-up things he and Julia Ormond do in this movie and then remember them as romantic leads in While You Were Sleeping and Sabrina, respectively. Overall, I found it misogynistic, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

– Little Children:

Has anyone seen Ruby In Paradise, starring Ashley Judd? It’s a great, little indie gem, and an actor named Todd Field played Ashley’s boyfriend. Well, now he’s apparently a big-time director. He directed this one, and though the cast is solid (hard to go wrong with Kate Winslet nor Jennifer Connelly, though they’re both stuck with rather one-dimensional characters), the story’s quite uneven, veering from genuine heartbreak (especially from the character of a sexual offender’s mother) to silly melodrama (the relationship between Jennifer’s husband and Kate get old pretty fast, which kind of is the point of the film).

– Into the Wild:

I read the book last month, and I was really moved by the story, the true tale of a young man who wanted to live life as a wandering tumbleweed. Christopher McCandless was undeniably one heck of a complex guy, and the book really made him and his actions come alive. As Christopher unknowingly marches on to his eventual death in an abandoned bus in desolate Alaska, you couldn’t help but find him both exasperating and exhilarating, and that dual emotional tension carried much of the book’s power.

The film never comes close to carrying off the same feat. It reduces Chris to a cartoonish, “Gee-whiz!” caricature for too much of the time (he makes cutesy faces at the camera; he talks to his food, screams “Society!” back and forth at a bar with Vince Vaughn). Also, the film’s constant use of narration (courtesy of his sister) and music (much of it courtesy of Eddie Vedder) works against its own purpose. Chris’ search for absolute calm and peace of mind begs for silence, not the cacophony of sounds the film presents.

Finally, I went shopping at my local supermarket when I saw this (of course, I had to buy it). It’s good to know that Seoul still has surprises in store for me:

P.S. Tori’s album has started to leak, and aside from “Welcome to England,” I’ve been playing the heck out of “Maybe California” (so pretty and sad) and “Curtain Call” (atmospheric and hypnotic). She may not be as consistently amazing as she once was, but still, when Tori’s on, she’s on.

Tori Amos – Maybe California