JadeBlog

Whether or not this is, strictly speaking, a "documentary," it is certainly a movie that prizes documentary values: a record of a spontaneous occurrence. The framing is rough-and-tumble. You can tell it was a struggle to capture some of the wilder spontaneous moments without interrupting the performers' flow—and that, faced with the choice of destroying a scene's momentum and staying put and hoping for the best, they stayed put. The result finds beauty in simplicity. If you counted how many cuts there are in the film, you might not break three digits. But there are no ostentatious, Hollywood-slick shots—just instance after instance of the filmmakers finding the most interesting person in the room (who might or might not be the one doing the talking) and staying on them for a long time, to see what happens. 

The vet quiets everyone else down and says he wants to tell a joke that's really more of an aphorism about human nature, and a deep one at that, but his audience else gets hung up on his repeated mispronunciation of the word "few" (maybe result of dental issues or a speech impediment) and won't let it go. The camera stays on the vet the whole time, crystallizing a moment that everyone has experienced at one time or another: a sincere attempt to connect, derailed by listeners who keep fixating on some minor, meaningless element. The bartender and several patrons watch "Jeopardy!" on the corner television, failing to get a single answer right. "Fuck this game," the bartender says, prompting gales of laughter from the customers. "What are we watching this for, to feel stupider? Like I need to feel dumber today, I already gotta deal with you clowns! Alex Trebek, you son of a bitch—you got the answers right in front of you, man!" The camera stays in a static wide shot the entire time, letting you choose which character to look at, and heightening your awareness of how much these regulars have come to depend on each each other. Friendship is an intoxicant, too.

Other times, the filmmakers' ability to concentrate—to really look and listen to their characters—cracks a moment open and releases deeper meanings. My favorite finds a drunk, drooling patron standing in the open doorway of The Roaring 20s as Michael, the intellectual barfly, urges him to go home. Most of the shot is obscured by an interior door frame and, more so, by the bartender's back and shoulders. Michael is squeezed into a v-shaped gap in the blackness, like he's part of a paper collage. Michael's sometimes-not-visible face, the drunk's disembodied voice, the bartender in the foreground, and the rectangle of merciless, blown-out sunlight backlighting the action combine, evoking primordial dread. It's as if one being is urging another to leave the womb, or give in to death's release, while we bear witness. 

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