Audience Member
Road to Nowhere (Monte Hellman, 2010)
Like everyone else, I knew the name Monte Hellman thanks to his cult favorite Two-Lane Blacktop (which stars a young James Taylor, of all people); I had no idea he was still making movies until a few years ago, at which point I set out to try and track a few down. Netflix Instant Streaming was my friend, first pointing me to the anthology flick Trapped Ashes, of which Hellman's entry is the best by a country mile, and then to this wonderful little talk-piece-cum-slow-thriller, the kind of avant-garde nightmare that tends to make fans of more accessible thrillers cringe (thus, I would assume, its low ratings at the usual suspects; 5.5 at IMDB, 38% public on Rotten Tomatoes-but, as I am fond of noting when I see it, the gulf between the public and the critical receptions to this movie is massive. The critical rating at RT: 79%). I'll add to the gap: I think it's goddamn brilliant, though I have to agree with Roger Ebert's pithy quote that the film "plays like an exercise in frustrating audiences." This is a thriller for Apichatpong Weerasethakul fans, at least if I am any yardstick to judge by.
Steven Gaydos (All Men Are Mortal)' script is an ensemble piece masquerading as a straightforward thriller. The surface plot: a hot young filmmaker, Mitchell Haven (Snakes on a Plane's Tygh Runyan), heads into the backwoods of the deep south to make a movie based on a local unsolved mystery. He finds, and casts, a leading lady who seems to be everything he could want for his movie, Laurel Graham (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang's Shannyn Sossamon); she knows all kinds of trivia about the crime even Mitchell is unaware of. Eventually, that leads to the question: is Laurel Graham actually Velma Duran, the supposed culprit?
But trying to give you an easy synopsis of a Monte Hellman movie strikes me as being as frustrating, and as spurious, an exercise as trying to do the same with a film by one of Hellman's contemporaries, Jon Jost. It's not a casual comparison; I get the same things from Jost's filmic exercises, those I've seen anyway, as I do from Road to Nowhere. The plot wanders in and out of focus as other interesting subplots take to the fore, almost as if something interesting had caught the director's eye and he said "hey, let's take this out and see where it goes if we let it wander off down its own road." That can be an exercise, for some viewers, in beating one's head against the wall. This isn't Steven Seagal action movie stuff, the kind of movie where a committee goes over the script and the first question they ask about every scene is "how does this scene advance the main plot?". That's the kind of advice you get in how-to-write books, and if you're looking to appeal to the Hollywood-loving masses, it's valuable advice. But Road to Nowhere is something different. Hellman was looking for art, I think. My head keeps coming back to Jon Jost; there is a lot of meat on the bone of comparing Road to Nowhere to Jost's similar wandering thriller Last Chants for a Slow Dance, methinks.
Putting all that aside and looking at the technical aspects of the film, the things that are going to keep the non-art-school kids interested, well, there's not much to complain about; Hellman pulled together an exceptional cast (John Diehl, Dominique Swain, Cliff de Young, and Waylon Payne round out the principals), put them all in front of award-winning Spanish cinematographer Josep Civit (Anguish), and let them all do what they do best. Are you going to like it? I can't tell you that. Did I? I loved it. This is the kind of movie that, if you see it with a group of friends in an otherwise-deserted theater, will have you sitting in the dive bar next door until closing time arguing about it. Loudly. *** 1/2
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/11/23
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Audience Member
ROAD TO NOWHERE is truly a superb existentialist feast. Challenging, though not perfect, ROAD is an extraordinary experience. Merging reality and film, the picture never goes down the road of playing with the audience to decipher the difference between "the real" and "the fantasy"--there is no difference. Is there a real world? Or a fantasy cinematic one? Who are you? And most importantly, who am I? Can I know who I am? All questions asked very indirectly by ROAD TO NOWHERE. A truly extraordinary experience for Monte Hellman, who I'm thrilled to see make another film.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
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(***): [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img]
Slow-moving, but I was still intrigued throughout.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
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Audience Member
This film is tiresome, pretentious and slow to the point where you can not be bothered to watch more than the first 15 minutes. Any hope that the protagonists get horribly and quickly whacked was not enough to stop me pressing reject. Complete pile of pish.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
I don't really know why this didn't get any attention last year. It's brilliant. There's a non sequitur break in the fourth wall near the end that's mystifying. Hopefully Hellman will get some love in the future.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
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Audience Member
Il existe bien des façons de considérer ce film du revenant Monte Hellmann, cinéaste maudit des années 70 que sa farouche volonté d'indépendance mit au ban des studios hollywoodiens, et qui livre ici son premier film depuis près de 22 ans ! Fidèle à son souci de rester en marge d'un système qu'il conchie, Hellmann a imaginé un pitch d'un certain intérêt, puisqu'il s'intéresse au tournage d'un film sur une affaire de fraude dont la finalité ultime est de faire oublier la véritable fraude dont il traite ! Manipulations, mensonges, travestissement de la réalité et femmes fatales, "Road to nowhere" est clairement sous influence lynchienne, ce qui n'est pas la plus mauvaise manière d'aborde le Thriller. Cependant, durant une bonne partie du film, Hellmann passe son temps à détailler les problèmes insolubles, les écueils, les difficultés et les tractations obligatoires qui rythment le tournage d'un film : une mise en abîme étrange, plus didactique que ce à quoi on pouvait s'attendre et qui a le mérite à la fois de faire découvrir l'envers du décor et d'exposer sans détour la très faible estime de Hellmann pour le système qui a anéanti sa carrière. En poussant la réflexion un peu plus loin, on ne manquera pas non plus de repérer le regard qu'il porte sur le pouvoir du médium cinéma, selon l'adage qui prétendrait que "Rien n'existe, rien n'est vrai si cela n'a pas été filmé". Bref, "Road to nowhere" est, de toute évidence, le fruit d'une véritable réflexion et d'une volonté de se démarquer du tout-venant de la production actuelle ; sa sélection dans de nombreux festivals prestigieux est là pour en témoigner. Pourtant, si les idées véhiculées par le film présentes un certain intérêt, elles ne sont pas neuves pour autant et Monte Hellmann, en critiquant le système économique hollywoodien et s'interrogeant sur les notions de réalité et de vérité, ne fait que poursuivre ce que d'autres réalisateurs ont déjà exploré, le plus souvent avec davantage de savoir-faire. Car s'il est une autre caractéristique de Monte Hellmann qui le place clairement en marge du cinéma de grande diffusion, c'est sa mise en scène lente, apathique, contemplative comme du Terrence Malick qui serait descendu de sa soucoupe volante, qui refuse jusqu'à l'idée même de mettre en exergue la moindre scène clé. Honnêtement, tout cela témoigne d'une obstination un peu puérile à jouer les francs-tireurs, à incarner le "vrai" art cinématographique d'antan (Hellmann dissémine beaucoup de scènes d'anciens films au sein de "Road to nowhere") et pas les productions formatées d'aujourd'hui (et des vingt dernières années). Cette posture a beau être en accord avec le personnage, elle parvient à annihiler tout le plaisir qu'on aurait pu prendre à décortiquer cette théorie sur le cinéma.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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