USA
4.5*
Director:
David Gordon Green
Screenwriter:
David Gordon Green
Director of Photography:
Tim Orr
Running time: 94 minutes
Prince Avalanche marks a triumphant return for David Gordon Green. Rumours had been making the rounds for a while that the director had all but committed artistic hara-kiri when he started making big-budget films, first with Pineapple Express (which was quite enjoyable, but already a far cry from his previous film, Snow Angels). The broad comedy of the latter was in direct contrast with his gentler approach to the human condition in his early films, especially the crown jewel of his career so far, his 2004 film Undertow.
What sets Green’s filmmaking apart from that of all of his peers, especially when he behaves like a serious filmmaker, is the quality of the writing, and in particular the beauty of his dialogue. While Green has ditched the voiceover that aligned some of his films very closely with those of Terrence Malick (who served as executive producer on Undertow), he still very clearly demonstrates his skill as a writer and a fine observer of human emotion and thinking with some beautifully wrought lines about love and loss.
In an early scene with an old woman who has lost her house to a wildfire and is digging through the white ash of her former possessions, we share road worker Alvin’s (Paul Rudd) astonishment as she says, “Sometimes, I feel like I’m digging through my own ashes.” The woman’s words are expressed with a combination of truth and sincerity, yet they also have a powerful aftertaste that we cannot ignore. This comes after she relates a story of such simplicity and pride we cannot help but well up with tears at her predicament, and yet she is by no means presented as any kind of a victim.
Prince Avalanche is a remake of the Icelandic Either Way (Á annan veg) but has fleshed out some of the characters a bit more than the original, including that of the lady mentioned above, making her more human without taking away any of the mystery she had in the earlier film.
The two main characters of the film, in whose company we spend most of the running time, Alvin and Lance (Emile Hirsch), are out in the Texas countryside in 1987 repainting the yellow traffic lines on the road that leads through a forest, devastated by a wildfire a few months earlier (there was no such fire in Texas in 1987) and now reduced to a wasteland of charcoal.
Lance, who is Alvin’s sister’s boyfriend, got Alvin the job in part because he wanted the young man to make something with his life instead of wasting away at home. Alvin is not focused much, and Lance, who himself is on prescription medication, opines that Alvin ought to be, too. Alvin spends his time reading Lance’s comic books and only half-heartedly participates in the task of repairing the road cutting through the forest. Recently out of school, he is exceptionally horny and spends his nights masturbating in his tent.
Although Green no longer has the lush backdrop of Georgia to work with, as he did in Undertow, he and his DP, fellow University of North Carolina School of the Arts graduate Tim Orr, nevertheless present us with rich visuals that radiate with the green of the fresh foliage, the sparkle of water drops, the yellow of the lines, the orange of the sunsets, the red of the pickup truck and the blue of the boys’ jumpsuits. Despite there only being two characters, the vibrant colours and equally colourful dialogue produce a broad tableau to draw us in and keep us interested.
With multiple shots showing us the forest and its smaller inhabitants, Green emphasizes the peace of the space regardless of the burned pieces of wood that never let us forget a more brutal past. We can understand both of the young men’s desire, at various points, to have the silence to think, to pick up the pieces and reassess the direction of their lives.
Prince Avalanche, whose title fits in very well with the comic-book / superhero element, heavily depends on dialogue, and the back-and-forth between Alvin and Lance is perfectly suited to the talents and facial expressions of Rudd and Hirsch. But Green also adds some excellent visual gimmicks along the way that alternate between gag and poetry. At one point, the lines painted on trees suddenly serve as a line for writing, and Green proceeds to write. It is a gorgeous and unexpected moment that seems not at all like showing off but rather affirms the courage and the skill of the filmmaker, whose Undertow also benefited from several moments of visual experimentation.
In the end, it seems like Green wants to show us dynamic life is possible even amid apparent destruction. Although he never really puts much despair onscreen, his characters certainly have their fair share of difficulties to confront, and they rise to the task — even if it means they have to chug the vodka an old truck driver has given them and dance around in slow motion like fools in the wilderness.
Green shows again why he was called one of the most promising directors of his generation when his début feature, George Washington, was released in 2000. While his worst films make us shake our heads in dismay, his finest films enrich our lives like very few others out there.
This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.