asakiyume | Leave No Trace

Initially I hadn't been thrilled by the notion of this film; I think because I feared (completely unjustifiably) that it would be purveying trite truths of one sort or another. But several of my friends reviewed it favorably, and finally last night I got to see it--and really loved it.

It's a totally different kind of film from Winter's Bone (by the same director), a very **gentle** story, and quiet, even though elements of the story aren't gentle at all. In fact, all through the movie there were moments when, primed by what Hollywood often does, I was on the edge of my seat expecting something horrible to happen--and it didn't.

The situation is that Tom (a girl) has been living with her PTSD-suffering war-veteran father in a national park, foraging, growing their own food, collecting rainwater--and occasionally going into town to buy things (which they finance by dad selling the medication he gets from the VA to other vets). They get found out and forced to reassimilate into society. Tom is adjusting, but her dad is not, and he announces they're taking off again. Reluctantly, she leaves with him, but things are much harder and grimmer this time around.

What I loved about it most were the moments with animals and the sense of how healing and enriching sharing time and space with animals can be. There's a scene where the dad is stroking a horse, and the horse rests its head against the dad, and the dad rests his head against the horse, and they're just still together for a moment, and oh my heart! Same with Tom stroking a rabbit she finds hopping along the road and returns to its owner; same later on when an older woman shows her the miracle of a hive of bees.

The beauty of the natural world resonates through the whole film, too, but the film understands that it's beauty that will kill you if you're underprepared--and Tom and her father understand that; in fact, everyone in the movie understands the situation and everyone else pretty well: the problem is what people can live with.

Thinking about everyone understanding brings up another thing I liked about the film: there wasn't really a villain. Even the state isn't villainous: it tries its best to accommodate Tom and her dad's unique needs within a framework of what's societally acceptable. It's just that it won't work for the dad.

I think that's the saddest thing in the film--that the dad just can't feel at ease in, apparently, any situation near other people, except his daughter, whom he loves very much, whereas she's growing into a person who wants to be near other people, though she loves her dad very much. But I'd call the ending happy: it's a good one for Tom, and it's set up in the film as one that's not doom-and-death for the dad either.

Crossposts: https://asakiyume.livejournal.com/914635.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sartorias

Oh thank you for this. I would have stayed miles from this, expecting the usual Hollywood treatment going for the blood and anguish.

From:

asakiyume

Yeah--it's almost still painful because you're expecting horrors, even if they're not there. The love and kindness in the movie, though, more than make up for any anxiousness I felt worrying about those no-show horrors.

For instance, at one point some ATV drivers help out Tom. We see her run out to flag them down and we were terrified that they would ignore her or mock her or hurt her somehow. But no. They help her. All along the journey, people are kind.

From:

sartorias

That sounds very much worth watching. Where did you see it?

From:

asakiyume

Through DVD Netflix--i.e., it's not streaming.

From:

genarti

Same! But this sounds lovely.

From:

asakiyume

I really liked it!

From:

zyzyly

It's not a film I have heard about until now, but it sounds like something I would like to watch.

From:

e_d_young

I get the feeling you didn't but did you read the book? I wonder if the natural world has as much presence in it. Actually, a nonfiction book-length account of the experience would be more interesting to me. And I can't help but wonder where the mom is in all this.

From:

asakiyume

I knew there was a book, but no, I haven't read it. In the movie, the mom had died when the daughter was too young to remember her, but I don't know if that's true to the book.

From:

sovay

I was on the edge of my seat expecting something horrible to happen--and it didn't.

That's really lovely.

From:

asakiyume

It was a very informative meta-experience in terms of alerting me to how Hollywood trains us to expect random cruelty and nastiness--especially in stories about people at the margins. The argumentative voice in my head says that that's because random cruelty and nastiness is so common--but the thing about Hollywood's portrayal is how stereotyped it is, so much so that it's more an icon representing cruelty than the thing itself (say, the scene you commonly find in a high school movie where a buff jock is slamming a bespectacled nerd into a locker. It's a cliche of a thing rather than the thing itself).

And the thing is, small kindnesses and silent support happens too in life at the margins: I know this from talking to people at the jail. It's maybe, upon reflection, not realistic that the chronological slice of Tom's life that we see should go by without some random cruelties, but that wasn't where the film wanted to direct viewers' attention. It's not a slice-of-life film about life on the margins; it's about how even though the world-shared-with-others is not a horrible place, it's not a place the dad can be, and about the fact that this makes a hard, hard situation for him and his daughter.

Not everyone will be happy with the film's respect of the dad's autonomy. It's the question of whether it's okay to violate a person's sense of self and sense of what they want in order to give them the option to live a broader, fuller, happier life. The film is saying no, and probably because it is, it's at pains to show that the dad is pretty much happy when he's on his own. In the film, corralling him for treatment would involve a deep violation and a lot of coercion for a hypothetical and not-guaranteed happier end state.

Edited (twice! for clarity, ugh) Date: 2019-01-01 12:59 pm (UTC)

From:

sovay

it's about how even though the world-shared-with-others is not a horrible place, it's not a place the dad can be, and about the fact that this makes a hard, hard situation for him and his daughter.

Which makes the choices much more difficult than if the world were simply awful and he were protecting himself and his daughter from it.

I will look for this movie; I wanted to see it after Winter's Bone, but then it didn't bother to play any theaters near me.

From:

asakiyume

It's not on streaming Netflix, but it is available through Netflix DVD

From:

osprey_archer

Yes - your last paragraph, this exactly. This is something that I've found hard to articulate about this film, maybe because the argument it's making is so unusual - because it's an argument in favor of respecting the dad's autonomy, even though his choices are at best unusual and at worst truly unhealthy, and even though he ends up abandoning his daughter to follow them.

I have such mixed emotions about the ending of the movie, because this so clearly is what he wants to do with his life, but at the same time I feel like - maybe he should have tried harder to stay with his daughter, you know? It's not like he gave the community with the bee lady and the vet with the therapy dog a good college try but just couldn't hack it; he'd made up his mind to go back into the woods and he was waiting till his ankle healed so he could do so. Maybe he could have made it there, but he doesn't want to.

But then I think, no, if he doesn't want to then he shouldn't have to - even if staying isn't impossible, that shouldn't mean that he has to stay. (Does that make sense? I feel there should be a clearer way to say it.) It's not like he's abandoning Tom on the street, after all: she's in a safe place, and he's in a place where he feels safe (and he's well aware that the wilderness has it's perils).

...I also like to think that he'll eventually begin to drop by to visit Tom, possibly with presents of freshly foraged food.

From:

asakiyume

Yeah, I think it was treading a very careful line, and I think depending on who's watching it, they'll either feel it works or not (maybe even depending on **when** they're watching it).