“In her 2015 Dissolve interview with film critic Tasha Robinson, Debra Granik, commenting on her documentary Stray Dog (2014) about a Vietnam veteran, notes the richness of the things she wished her documentary had time to cover: ‘There could have have been a whole film that could have gone much more in-depth on therapeutic discussion, on what it takes to manage PTSD, or to face ghosts, and figure out how to live the next chapter of your life.’ Leave No Trace, Granik’s third feature-length narrative film, is, perhaps, a beautiful expression of that other film that Stray Dog did not have the space to be. At its heart, Leave No Trace is about a father and a daughter, the father, Will (Ben Foster), a military vet suffering from PTSD, who has fled with his daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), into the vibrantly green, forested public land near Portland, Oregon, where, when the story begins, they’ve been living for years, off the grid, in quiet, companionable existence. Granik, with deft efficiency and a gentle rhythm, sets up their way of life--the ways they gather or grow food, collect rainwater, build fires for cooking and warmth, practice hiding from intruders who might happen upon their camp, and trek periodically into Portland for supplies.
“Peaceful though this father-daughter existence is, the film establishes the conflict at the heart of the narrative with a couple of key moments early on. The most overt threat is the threat of discovery from the outside world, but the sustained emotional center of the film is in the father and daughter's relationship, and it is there that the main conflict resides. In one early scene, Will awakens in a suppressed panic one night, as a helicopter flies overhead; we realize he is experiencing a flashback, the distress of a war time experience we cannot see. We understand, in this small moment, the immense depth of Will’s trauma: Will cannot easily go back to living among other people. But Tom is not her father. At 13, on the cusp of womanhood, we see hints of her desire for the outside world, for new connections. In another moment early in the film, Tom discovers a necklace alongside the forest trail and delightedly, eagerly, wears it. In their frugal, survivalist existence, it is a luxury, a pretty thing that has no practical value. But she wants it for herself in a way that Will cannot really understand. Even before the inevitable discovery comes and the outside world steps in to tell them their way of life is not allowed, we see the hairline fracture between father and daughter. Tom quietly longs for something outside the isolated forest. Will cannot bear to live elsewhere. But the father and daughter’s lives are inextricably linked, so much so that that they often communicate as sparsely as they live, a click of the tongue to say ‘I love you,’ a look or a gesture to express humor or tenderness. We cannot imagine how these two can live without each other, but we cannot see how they can continue either, each person getting, fully, what he or she needs.
“In the same gentle way that Tom and Will live, Granik develops her story and the conflict gradually, matching their rhythms with her filmmaking. When the rupture in their way of life comes, we watch as Tom and Will react subtly but dissimilarly to what they experience. The pain they feel when they are separated and the closeness they feel is never undermined, but slowly the fracture between them, the things they need and feel as separate human beings, widens. Tom wants to learn new things, form new connections, find a community; Will, try though he might, working at a job, living in a traditional home, cannot bear the constant reminders of a trauma that sometimes forces him down to the ground, where he cradles his head in his hands, in a pain he quietly hides from others. The entire film is a quiet one; Granik gives her actors very little dialogue, but frames them, with beautiful work from DP Michael McDonough, in such a way that their faces and bodies communicate the emotion, the things that cannot be said but only deeply felt. Granik trusts the images to do the talking and allows room for the eloquence of silence. An unassuming but assured answer to the frantic editing and frenetic images that so often fill our cinema screens, Granik offers us space to breathe and feel, to learn to love our characters and feel with them their complicated emotions.
“In the same 2015 interview Granik noted, ‘I am always interested in anybody’s roadmap of how they’re making their life work. For many people, there’s no easy path. . . . When people share insights, or reveal whatever they’re doing to be able to live their life and not be weary of it . . . I’m there. You can sign me up for any of those projects.’ That the Academy has not signed up to recognize the brilliance of her project this year is, perhaps, a sad testament to the way un-showy a film like Granik’s about society’s outliers, might be often overlooked. But I trust that, in posterity, Granik will be recognized for the humanity and the brilliance in filmmaking her work demonstrates. And many in the critical community, not least myself, eagerly await whatever project Granik decides to take on next. We’re there; please sign us up.” ~ Melissa Tamminga
No comments:
Post a Comment