User reviews

Don't give any credence to the other reviewer's comments. This film obviously overloaded his circuitry and left him with no recourse save the usual filmschool, cliched putdowns. He is correct about the film being puzzling, though. How could a director create such a gorgeous work of art and kill it with such a hamfisted ending? I suppose that in 1993 no one could have anticipated 10 years of prosecutorial misfeasance, brainwashed witnesses, the whole McMartin syndrome. So the Emerson quote, juxtaposed with the image of raped timberlands, must have seemed transparently cathartic and indictive of a paternalistic, failed American hegemony. Now, in 2003, when we know that children often tell lies, especially under the

prompting of "impartial" advocates with their own political agendas to advance, it seems merely unintentionally ironic. No matter. This movie is not about anything so obviously melodramatic as family secrets. It is, in fact, a grand symphonic ode to the American landscape and to the challenged lives of those who live mostly out-of-balance with nature. The long, magnificent static shots of urban and rural mis-en-scene are as perfectly integrated into the narrative as Ozu's earlier still-life compositions, and the human inhabitants of the Oregon town have as much dignity and grace as the Russian explorers in Dersu Uzala. Jost is the only American to have appropriated the meditative techniques of Tarkovsky, Angelopoulos and Bela Tarr and come close to succeeding on their level. So ignore the director's simple-minded, hippy-cum-leftist philosophy and just enjoy this film for its marvelous acting, technical panache and noble attempt to impose a formal filmic structure through long takes and ingenious editing.

WOW!!!!!!!!!! I've never seen anything like this. This is so brilliant that it's ridiculous. Beautiful imagery... very twisted, seemingly pointless, abrasive, and sloooooooow. Not for everyone. Hell, not for most people...

But somehow it works. I don't know how, to be honest. This film eventually settles into a groove and you are highly rewarded for watching. This is definitely a film that works on many levels. Many layers to unravel and one viewing is not enough.

I loved it. Will you? No. Jon Jost is a god, a genius, and probably the most important independent director in the history of North American cinema. Go worship Jim Jarmusch or Guy Maddin if you must but for real GENIUS, check here. One of the best films ever.

There is a single positive thing that I can think of to say about this movie, and that is that it has some slight value in terms of pretty still shots of a small town in the Northwest in the 1990s and of the machinery in the mill. Perhaps if the film was re-edited into a 15 minute documentary about this subject it could be considered a good film.

Unfortunately, everything else about this film is poorly done. The acting is terrible with stiff, unbelievable characters that the viewer does not care about. The plot is particularly terrible, consisting of only a handful of dramatic scenes which are poorly related and leave the viewer to guess at what the purpose was and try to piece together the story for himself. The ending is unbelievable. Most of the the film is long still shots of random stuff around the town such as traffic driving by, and is tedious and leaves the viewer wondering why they are wasting their time watching this. Then there are a small number of "artsy" shots with a moving camera that feel completely out-of-place in the film and convey that someone is trying too hard to put some artistic shots into a generally terrible film.

The film is long, boring, vapid, pointless. It has very little artistic value or value of any sort. Comparisons to any great film director are absurd and likely made in jest. This film has amateurism written all over it and I was saddened by the end credits as I thought maybe this was a project that Jost did all by himself on a $5 budget in his spare time, but it looks like there were actually a few other people involved in this producing this junk.

I would suggest that the prospective viewer sit on their deck and watch traffic drive by for 2 hours while pondering pretty much any topic of interest: that would be a more profound and valuable use of time than watching this.

For all of you "The Bed You Sleep In" fans...What is wrong with both of you!? LOL! I truly believe that everyone in this movie was on Valium. It has to be the slowest movie I have ever forced myself to watch to the end. I still can't believe I made it through the whole thing without falling asleep. There was one scene in a restaurant where the camera started shooting from the first point, and slowly made it's way around the circumference of the room, showing, plates, bowls, walls, people, doors, a paper bag, tables, chairs, counters, the camera finally made it back to the beginning after taking what seemed like an eternity, then began going around the restaurant again! Everyone in the movie talked in slow motion, pausing after every third word. There were shots of the town, which would seem like forever and for what reason? Like, shots of a side of an old building, shot of a town street, etc. The only way I would recommend this movie to anyone is if they were having trouble sleeping.