Not to sound homophobic, y’know, my best friends are gay, but…

My Own Private Idaho

I have seen quite a few Gus van Sant’s films, exactly 7 out of 14 of the feature films he has made until today. Starting from “Mala Noche”, his first, all the way up to “Milk”, one of his most recent endeavors, I’d say I have a good picture of his career, starting with the very rough simple gay stories to more subtly gay mainstream films to biopics about a gay politician. His insertion of a scene of “Tosca” will probably his most memorable contribution to my film enjoyment, yet at the same time, I have pretty much liked all his films despite or maybe rather because of the gayness. But from all I have seen, “My Own Private Idaho” stands out.

First of all, I have never seen anything with River Phoenix before. Of course he is infamous for dying a young death and that probably made him immortal – one of the biggest ironies of being famous, I suppose. But apart from that I had absolutely no idea he was just that good. How can a young kid who probably has seen nothing in life be such a good actor? Maybe the drugs did it; they created the misery that brought out this incredible character in him. Thinking about it, I wonder if Rooney Mara is also going to turn crazy.

The other pleasant aspect is to see Keanu Reeves actually being a great actor. He might have been heavily overshadowed by Mr. Phoenix there, just like Brad Pitt is practically overshadowed by his co-stars in any given film he has ever acted in (unlike Leo <3 who stands for himself), but this film proves that Keanu is more than a pretty face. And what a pretty face! Back in the day when everybody saw “The Matrix” he has never striked me as so attractive.

It’s not that the rest of the film is bad – it is very far from that. It’s just that if I had the film before I told other people to watch it, I would have been much more careful about it. I mean, hey… the film is a mix out of an unrequited gay love story which doesn’t really make much sense, another story that doesn’t exactly come to a conclusion (we haven’t actually learned anything about Mike’s mother nor much about Scott’s family), a street hustler who randomly falls asleep and finally, Shakespeare?

Note: Another bonus, yay Grace Zabriskie! I never imagined to see her in a movie again, she is just such a strange character?

I know that this is one of Shii’s favorite films and 6451 explicitly said that he liked it (he made me feel so guilty for giving him that movie without watching it! like catholically guilty you know). In consequence, my expectations for this film were extraordinarily high. In some sense it was fulfilled, because this film might just as well be Gus van Sant’s masterpiece in terms of storytelling and directing, but on the other hand, it also left me trailing in metaphorical ether… as if I was figuratively floating in an empty universe of thoughts and ideas. Perhaps he could have taken these three ideas – a street hustler who randomly falls asleep, a rich Shakespearean boy who decides to go back to the “good ways” and a lost boy looking for his mother – in order to fleshed them out and made three movies out of it. But the way it is right now, I thought the film was really strange and I probably failed to see its point.