Monday, May 13, 2013

Not Bad for Home Grown

Glen and Randa (1971)
directed by Jim McBride
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Rudy Wurlitzer is one of three credited writers on this script (the director is a second), and I don't know if the story originated with Wurlitzer, or if he was just McBride's pal, or what. In many ways, it's a memorable movie: a post-apocalyptic planet still verdant with moss and tall trees, peopled by windblown survivors who don't know quite what to make of the wider world. One man decides to see more of it, and brings along his companion, who is content to stay by their Oregon brooks in Oregon forests forever.

They meet strangers—all of them past sixty—and the old men are pathetic, lost souls, inevitably mesmerized by Randa. She reminds them of someone who died, or else they have not seen a woman at all for years. The first man is a traveling entertainer, and in the beginning, the movie is like an old Western, and the magician on his motorcycle like the biplane pilot in Days of Heaven. He sets up a tent and performs a few tricks for the camp—turns on a blender, lights a firecracker, plays a Rolling Stones song on a portable record player—and afterwards tells Glen and Randa about the city. While Glen looks at a map of Idaho, the magician sexually assaults Randa. Neither Randa nor Glen reacts at all.

The next day, Glen and Randa move on. He has a romanticized artistic temperament, fumbling at questions so that he can understand the human condition, but she is more of an amiable shadow, although clearly the movie's heart. They walk to California, and meet a second old man by the sea. This one is happy just to be near them. "Do I look like Arlene?" asks Randa, dressed in his dead wife's clothes after rummaging an old bureau. But this man knows the difference, and leaves her alone.

In a different mood, I might have found the movie tiresome, but I didn't. McBride hasn't had an illustrious career, but he lets these characters discover their small revelations with patience and empathy. The movie is sad, but not aimless: a long, quiet walk in the wilderness.