Honest Storytelling

I saw a movie yesterday...and last night…that totally popped the lid off this can of crazy between my ears. No, it wasn’t two movies, it was one movie that I watched twice. And I’ll probably watch it a handful of times over the next week. It cracked me open and I kind of wanted to stay open for the time being. 

But now I want to talk about it.

To be clear about how often this happens for me…the last movie that affected me like this was Pulp Fiction in 1994. Not that this movie had anything in common with Pulp Fiction other than if you had told me what each movie was about before I actually saw them, my response would have been the same.

“Why the hell would I want to watch a movie about that?”

 

And in both cases, I would have been somehow less me – the me I am today – for not having seen it.

This time it was The Station Agent from 2003. I don’t remember the first time I heard about it…a few years ago maybe. I know it wasn’t in 2003, though, because the only thing I was watching then was Sesame Street and Little Einstein videos. I do recall looking up a synopsis of it once on IMDB and seeing that it was really well reviewed by both filmgoers and critics. It won a couple of indie film awards and was recognized at Sundance. I think I must have read what it was about and thought yeah, it’s probably one of those artsy films I should see but when it was over I would be all damn that was boring and that’s two hours I’ll never get back AND I’d be filled with self-loathing for not being cool enough to like this indie film that other cool people liked.

I’m sure I convinced myself there was no upside.

But recently I kept hearing about it…probably because it was the first movie written and directed by Tom McCarthy who also wrote and directed Spotlight. I haven’t seen that yet either, but I figure if the dude won an Oscar, it was worth tracing his roots.  So I put the movie in the back of my mind so I would remember to look for it on Netflix. I then promptly forgot about it as I do with all things that I put on the to-do list in the back of my mind. That’s where all intentions go to die.

Fast forward a few days and I’m looking for a movie to watch. I’m already on the couch and too lazy to stand up and turn on the Xbox (through which we stream Netflix), grab the controller, and flip the TV to HDMI2.

My life is a ridiculous cascade of first world problems.

So instead, I grab the remote and start flipping through the 40-some-odd movie channels that we have and what did I stumble upon on Showtime? That’s right, The Station Agent starting in 5 minutes. So I hit record and planned to watch it later.

Fast forward again to yesterday. I had pretty much exhausted my to-do list – the real one that I write down – when I remembered that item from the back-of-my-brain to-do list – watch the station agent. (Everything on that list is written in lowercase.) So I did.

The first thing that I noticed was very positive…the movie was less than 90 minutes long. I appreciate efficiency. As I settled in to watch, I also noticed the visual style of the film was very Chef-Slingblade-Juno-Napoleon Dynamite-esque. I know zero about cinematography other than when they hand out awards for it, there is no break whatsoever between the music they play as the winner walks to the stage and the music they use to usher them away. They might as well just put them on a conveyer belt.  Anyway, I don’t know what the style is called, I just know they look and feel similar.

The next thing I notice is that Peter Dinklage is in it – Miles Finch from Elf which, incidentally, came out the same year. (And so help me God, if I get trolled by crazy Game of Thrones zealots because I didn’t say Tyrion Lannister I will lose my shit. Just back off. Winter is over.) Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Cannavale are the other two main characters and Michelle Williams has a part too. Great cast…so far so good.

Then the opening credits are over and I am inexplicably drawn into the action, and by action I mean, people walking around saying little to nothing. When they do talk, it’s about trains. For like, the first 10 minutes. There is this hilarious film within a film of some home movie that one “trainchaser” (that’s a real thing) was showing to a room full of other trainchasers. I mean, the home movie wasn’t funny, but the guy narrating his own film was GOLD. There’s nothing funnier than niche earnestness.

Nothing.

And then things started to happen. Someone died which resulted in someone else uprooting himself in an attempt to live the life of a hermit. In an abandoned train depot. And then it becomes magic. I’m not going to tell you anymore about it because its genius would be lost in translation. I will tell you about the epiphany I had about it this morning, though. 

As I watched it…twice…yesterday, I kept thinking that there was some other movie it reminded me of (other than the ones I mentioned), but it was illusive. I made my husband watch it and a few friends too…all because I just wanted them to tell me what other movie it reminded me of.

Crickets.

And then it occurred to me this morning while I was walking home from my workout. Just silently walking. Not saying anything. Oh, that movie feels like real life. It reminds me of real life.

The cinematic equivalent of a still life painting.

I know. Why the hell would anyone go to the movies to watch real life? As my friend, Anne, pointed out, we generally go to the movies to be manipulated. I am totally guilty of this. In my twenties, when I needed a good cry, my roommate and I would watch Terms of Endearment…a monument to emotional manipulation…because apparently the 90s weren’t sad enough on their own and I couldn’t come up with anything real to cry about. Which begs the question, why did I need to cry in the first place?

But let’s not overthink it. Just hang with me for a minute…we go to movies to be manipulated and if we want to see real life on the screen, we watch documentaries or reality TV because everyone knows that Michael Moore and The Bachelor are not manipulative at all.

But I digress. 

The Station Agent blows that theory out of the water. It wasn’t manipulative or forced or theatrical. It was mostly people walking on railroad tracks and not talking to each other. Even the most dramatic moments in the movie were completely believable. It was like watching relationships happen between real people. In tiny moments…in big moments…it was just real interaction unfolding right on the screen. And in this quiet vacuum of honest storytelling, I didn't feel cheated in the least.

No nudity. No guns. No bombs. No CGI. And no clean little ending either. It wasn’t a bad ending…in fact, it really didn’t have an ending at all. You just kind of get the sense that things will keep on chugging.

Kind of like life. And trains.