Review of Slacker (1990) by Carol B — 07 Mar 2008

[font=Arial]Although you probably wouldn?t think it, but Richard Linklater had made one of the best films ever on his first try. By no means do I think that his Before Sunrise and Sunset movies aren?t good or that Waking Life isn?t a pure dream. But in comparison to Slacker, it seems like he was trying to accomplish in his later works what he perfected in his first film.

Don?t let the film?s title fool you. This isn?t your run-of ?the-mill loser movie. It is, in fact, about society and about moviegoers in general. We start off with a young man on a bus heading to Austin. It?s morning and it?s apparent that he?s either a college student or dropout that still lives the life of a student. He takes a cab from the bus stop and starts talking to the driver who says nothing back. For most of the movie, that?s all that happens. People talk to other people or to themselves. They meet others and they start to talk. There?s rarely any topical repetition, but if there were, the film might come off as inept or worse, pretentious. In fact, Linklater allows for some profundity in a sea of mediocrity. Some people talk about their day, others about dreams or cars. Some don?t even talk at all. When something profound is discussed, such as a professor talking about the assassination of President McKinley, it comes off as absurd and yet realistic, especially when you compare it to the two conspiracy theorists in the film and the story told by a woman who might be holding a pap smear from Madonna.

The film?s greatest strength is in it?s restraint and unrestrained curiosity. The camera will walk out of one conversation in mid-sentence and find someone else to follow. This might come off as ADD, but in leaving as we do, there is no pretense of resolution, and therefore no reason to believe that the film will ever have one. In a way, long takes allow us the allusions of being with these people over the course of a day. Using non-professional actors (which I will bet the farm was not by choice) allow for an authenticity that the film needs to work. By not over saturating the film in witty dialogue allows it to feel earnest and realistic. By not being too mundane and allowing some whimsy the film never gets dull.

But the biggest reason that I love this film is because it celebrates the joy of what movies are all about. Other films that deal with an audiences voyeurism always seem to be dour or dirty, trying to make us feel ashamed for wanting to know it?s characters. This film treats voyeurism as a beautiful way to know more about each other. Take the professor I mentioned earlier. This character alone is fascinating, but then he comes home to find a burglar inside reading his books. The discussion that takes place might be absurd, but we believe it could take place. My favorite scene is with them caught between the State Capitol building and the infamous tower that Charles Starkweather used in the most heinous school shootings prior to Virginia Tech. I love how this man whose views today would get him a room at Guantanamo seems free to say what he wants to a man who?s entranced and bewildered by this conversation. When the robber leaves the professor, he leaves with his gun and a smile, and goes on.

Each story told is in pieces and none really come together into a collage like Nashville. But I?m glad it didn?t. Instead, it sees the individual moments as stories in themselves with beginnings and ends that we can only imagine. In that use of imagination in this film that sets it apart from all others.

When we get to the end of the 24-hour period, it is morning again ad we find ourselves with a group of kids with cameras going crazy in the back seat of a car and we are looking through their lens. We have spent most of the film as an objective observer, now we are subjected to the viewpoint of theses kids. And when one throws the camera off a cliff, we are the camera and we find darkness at the end. Our window into their world has been smashed.

The film at first might make you uncomfortable because it defies the rules of convention, but not for the sake of being different. The conventional rules do not wok for a movie that enjoys it?s innocent voyeurism. The film isn?t interested in dirty laundry, but in the simplicity of the everyday life of people. It was made in the early 90s, but it could have been made at any time at all. I had a laugh when I noticed a Ron Paul presidency ad in the middle of the film, considering his current presidential bid. But Linklater isn?t trying to be artsy like many first-time filmmakers. He?s just curious and he gambled that his audience is just as interested in other people?s conversations. It just turned out that he was correct.[/font].