River of Grass has all the elements of a conventional road movie: a car, a gun, criminal plans, and young lovers on the run from an angry father who also happens to be a suspended police officer. But writer and director Kelly Reichardt has instead taken these familiar elements and fashioned an anti-road movie, a deadpan film that is more existentialist comedy than crime drama. The young lovers in question are Cozy, the cop's daughter, and Lee Ray, a shady character from the wrong end of town. Lee Ray comes into possession of a pistol, and soon he and Cozy find themselves unintentionally involved in a shooting. Fearing capture by the law, the two make plans to leave town, committing a series of robberies on the way. However, they don't manage to get very far; indeed, the film's central premise is how the romantic myth of lovers on the lam proves disappointing in the face of a far more pedestrian reality. This well-received, low-budget indie was shot on location in South Florida, placing its story against an appropriately depressed landscape of sun-bleached strip malls, barren highways and overgrown, swampy fields; the title is another name for the Florida Everglades
The police pistol, which was the pivotal driver of the whole story, not only in a sense that it plays an intriguing role in deforming the heroine’s own destiny, but also it well encapsulates Kelly Reichardt’s attempts to subvert genre filmmaking her very directorial debut.
Firstly in a jazz bar, Cozy’s father, the local crime scene detective, encountered a thief stealing from the cashier and tried to bust him. We can see him reaching for his holster, but only after a while are we informed that he had lost his pistol. Neither had the pistol been fired, nor had the delinquent been arrested. Later the firearm fell into the hands of Lee, a relieving ridance to his friend but for him a chance to glorify himself as a rebel. Just as we reckon the story would go down the road of crime movie cliché, River Of Grass charmingly takes sideways. Being kicked out from his grandma’s house where he has spent most of his life as a consequence of pointing the gun at her, the armed convenient shop robbery that came later is far from a smooth bad-ass move. Another burglar breaks in stealing Lee’s party, while he ended up having the groceries hastily grabbed and a broken nose. And there is certainly no way that he acted like a real super villain contempting the law when being pulled up by a highway trooper for having no toll. In none of these scenarios is the pistol ‘properly’ fired, as the men in this film were never potent to exert their power through acts of violence or professional conducts, or at the very least, being a decent father.
In contrast, Kelly Reichardt stresses specifically the agency of a woman. From Cozy’s decision to hit the local pub all dressed-up as a way of breaking out of the secluded housewife lifestyle, to the phony murder sets the two self-proclaimed outlaws on a fugitive journey, our view drifts aimlessly around alongside with her fluid-like experience and emotions. Reichardt holds nothing back in keeping her camera in a close distance to Cozy’s body, conjuring an authentic portrait of a emotionally reppressed suburbanite. Their adventure never really leaves Dade county though, for her not even the dim motel room. There seems to be no catharsis to this ineffable sense of melancholia building up to her condition. Thereupon in this stagnation, a sudden gunshot at the end that took her ‘’Clyde’s’’ life was truly a shocker for us. The dramatization here has nothing to do with the action or the momentum per se as no close-up to it had been given, but rather with psychological issues. Ironically as the gun being disposed at the exact same place where it was founded, a flicker of romanticism lights up the bleak texture throughout the film, at least for a little while.
Yet our heroine’s courageous voyage was quickly dampened in the heavy traffic, the aforementioned highway construction doesn’t symbolize free accessibility. We don’t get deterministic ending, instead the emotional shackle grips us firmly and the gunshot wasn’t powerful enough to break us free. Sadly enough nothing seems to have changed even the slightest.
如果说凯莉·雷查德的处女作电影有何让人意外的话，那必定是故事背景竟然不是在俄勒冈，却选择了明媚的佛罗里达小镇。尽管如此，影片里没有出现阳光海滩，反而将镜头转向远离海岸线的北迈阿密地区，这也是英文片名的来历。影片无厘头的情节设计有点像霍尔·哈特利(Hal Hartley)的处女作《难以置信的事实》。赤脚男女、黑屏数字、黑胶唱片、摇滚乐和爵士乐，男女主角莫名其妙碰上，阴差阳错走上逃亡之路。如果说《米克的近路》是颠覆了西部片的话，那么这些异想天开的细节与桥段应该是为打破传统公路片类型而精心设计的。nn男女主角都具有古怪而迷人的气质，尤其是经历过青春期的观众，绝对会对两人的叛逆心态身同感受。不得不提，轻松幽默的对白和轻盈自如的肢体动作更带有一些法国新浪潮影子。可惜是两个角色的戏份不够完整，在如此短的篇幅里难以让人信服其行为动机，更导致后面女主角的自我醒悟来得过于突然。同样地，叙述视角不够统一，令影片过于松散无序。不过，这部处女作仍值得一看，其自觉的女性主义立场（后半部分及结尾的处理）逐渐成为凯莉·雷查德作品中不可或缺的作者风格。
The police pistol, which was the pivotal driver of the whole story, not only in a sense that it plays an intriguing role in deforming the heroine’s own destiny, but also it well encapsulates Kelly Reichardt’s attempts to subvert genre filmmaking her very directorial debut.
Firstly in a jazz bar, Cozy’s father, the local crime scene detective, encountered a thief stealing from the cashier and tried to bust him. We can see him reaching for his holster, but only after a while are we informed that he had lost his pistol. Neither had the pistol been fired, nor had the delinquent been arrested. Later the firearm fell into the hands of Lee, a relieving ridance to his friend but for him a chance to glorify himself as a rebel. Just as we reckon the story would go down the road of crime movie cliché, River Of Grass charmingly takes sideways. Being kicked out from his grandma’s house where he has spent most of his life as a consequence of pointing the gun at her, the armed convenient shop robbery that came later is far from a smooth bad-ass move. Another burglar breaks in stealing Lee’s party, while he ended up having the groceries hastily grabbed and a broken nose. And there is certainly no way that he acted like a real super villain contempting the law when being pulled up by a highway trooper for having no toll. In none of these scenarios is the pistol ‘properly’ fired, as the men in this film were never potent to exert their power through acts of violence or professional conducts, or at the very least, being a decent father.
In contrast, Kelly Reichardt stresses specifically the agency of a woman. From Cozy’s decision to hit the local pub all dressed-up as a way of breaking out of the secluded housewife lifestyle, to the phony murder sets the two self-proclaimed outlaws on a fugitive journey, our view drifts aimlessly around alongside with her fluid-like experience and emotions. Reichardt holds nothing back in keeping her camera in a close distance to Cozy’s body, conjuring an authentic portrait of a emotionally reppressed suburbanite. Their adventure never really leaves Dade county though, for her not even the dim motel room. There seems to be no catharsis to this ineffable sense of melancholia building up to her condition. Thereupon in this stagnation, a sudden gunshot at the end that took her ‘’Clyde’s’’ life was truly a shocker for us. The dramatization here has nothing to do with the action or the momentum per se as no close-up to it had been given, but rather with psychological issues. Ironically as the gun being disposed at the exact same place where it was founded, a flicker of romanticism lights up the bleak texture throughout the film, at least for a little while.
Yet our heroine’s courageous voyage was quickly dampened in the heavy traffic, the aforementioned highway construction doesn’t symbolize free accessibility. We don’t get deterministic ending, instead the emotional shackle grips us firmly and the gunshot wasn’t powerful enough to break us free. Sadly enough nothing seems to have changed even the slightest.
一般来说，每个独立电影人都会使劲在自己的处女作里填满自己的毕生所学，比如贾木许的《长假漫漫》、萨弗迪兄弟的《被抢劫的乐趣》，甚至电影大师PTA的短片首秀《香烟与咖啡》，他们无一不用稚嫩且蹩脚的镜头影像、叙事结构和场面调度包装各自的风格主义。但Kelly的处女作《野草蔓生》却一般都被看作是她所有作品里面最不像她的作品。
作为一个经常把镜头投向美利坚西北部的导演, 这是她唯一一部在佛罗里达州取景的电影；作为一位不愿意落入窠臼的独立影人，在我看来却从各种角度落入了90年代反类型的类型片俗套。
因为属于1994年的电影史话从不缺少这种反类型的鬼才，比如昆汀·塔伦提诺当年用《低俗小说》接过戛纳金棕榈之后，全世界都在膜拜他，全世界也在模仿他，这也是为什么我认为kelly之后用长达12年的作品空白期反思她在这部片子里乏善可陈的个人踪迹。
首先《野草蔓生》具备常规公路电影的所有元素：汽车、枪支、犯罪计划、亡命鸳鸯，甚至追捕他们的警察也恰巧是女主角的父亲，所有犯罪的起源也来自警察父亲遗落的手枪，这样设置的叙事巧合我们在希区柯克的电影中轻车熟路。但作为反类型片它又是一部没有公路的公路片，没有犯罪的犯罪片，没有爱情的爱情片——因为男女主错杀的路人甲其实并没有死，他们原本计划的逃亡之旅其实也只是在这样破败的小镇兜圈子，这样干涩的幽默感照搬继承了昆汀剑走偏锋的反类型风格，也颇有科恩兄弟黑色喜剧味道。
那同时，上面提到《野草蔓生》之所以被看作是她所有作品里面最不像她的作品也是因为Larry Fessenden除了担任了该片的男主角之外，还是这部电影的制片人，也是这部电影的剪辑师，也就不难怪为何处女作麻利的节奏为何和之后徐缓节奏有了相当大的差异。
但并不是说这部电影的反类型就是失败的，也并不是说kelly在这部电影里的想法完全就被掐灭了，她作为女性导演显而对每处细节和氛围的烘托有更柔和的处理，对现实生活也有更凌冽的刻画。
比如电影开始，男女主误杀黑人，但后来发现犯罪未遂，逃亡失败，这个时候剧中人和剧外人都在期待公路片范式，但“如果我们不是杀人犯，那我们什么都不是”，“如果我们没有离开这，那我们永远都困在这儿”。所以影片结尾处的一声枪响是雷蒙德最不甘心的浪漫一笔——女主心灰意冷冲动崩了男主，正式逃亡驱车驶向公路远方。
不过，电影又结束在你我都尴尬的瞬间——女主绝情扔掉手枪逃离小镇的时候，那可没有《末路狂花》那般驶向悬崖一骑绝尘的浪漫，她的小破车堵在了高速公路上，开不走挪不动，镜头升起纵深那一刻是一望无际的交通堵塞，就像女主又回到对之前百无聊赖生活疏离迷失的萎靡状态。
这里结局处理基本上成了她之后电影的一贯风格——一方面为电影探索更写实的意境，一方面戏剧性的讽刺点到为止，这样的反差感意味深长，成长与反成长共振，似乎都暗示着电影结束之后我们与这些角色的牵连感继续存在，但其实这些人早在你遇到他们之前就已存在毫不相干……