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GOD IS ALONE
Produced, Directed, Written, Edited, and Videotaped by Jason TorreyWilliam - Jra Schaefer
Marge - Sherri Sewell
#1 Dad - Jeffrey Thomas
Amy - Monique FarrarThe beautiful black and white images of Jason Torrey's GOD IS ALONE unfold with all the striking grace of those old Life Magazine covers hiding in your grandfather's attic. Some of those images are iconic: the sailor kissing his girl after arriving home from WWII, the Vietnamese civilian point-blank execution by a soldier, or the flag being raised at Guam. You don't need much more than those brief descriptions to the know the exact photos I'm refering to, they're etched onto our brains from fourth grade history class through our adult years watching Jeopardy to our twilight memories of what it means to be American. Those images are as beautiful as they are haunting and powerful.
GOD IS ALONE is a movie comprised of beautifully haunting images. Many of which we've seen time and time again, mostly in college film classes. A good two-thirds of every film viewed in college took place in a cemetery, and every film contained at least one shot of the Virgin Mary as a tombstone backlit with the sun. And it's that image that opens Jason Torrey's exercise in pure underground cinema, but I can't remember that cliched image ever having so much weight before. Torrey doesn't place his camera any differently than anyone else. The framing is the same. The lighting is the same. Perhaps it's the clouds in the deep background moving at an odd framerate that makes me contemplate the image. Regardless, it's an image the grabs you and pulls you in immediately.
The rest of the movie moves at a lackadaisical pace. You could argue that it moves far too slowly and could have it's running time cut down by 30- 40 minutes merely by excising all footage of people walking from place to place set to music. But these ambulatory music videos actually serve a purpose other than blatant padding most directors use them as - life is a journey and those long walks allow us to take in everything around us. And the walk of a working stiff is long and weary. People are in too much of a hurry to get from point A to point B, from conception to death, that they miss all the strange curveballs God throws at us. It's those curveballs that make life interesting.
Two curveballs smack William in the head during his usual morning routine. First he's fired from his deadend job, then he spies a bloody woman climbing out of a garbage dumpster. The woman runs away without so much as a word, but when William investigates he finds a newly born baby left behind in the trash bin. An analogy to abortion is an easy one to make, but one taking aim at bringing a child into this waste of a planet might be more accurate. We're killing ourselves anyway, so what's the point in sharing this world with a newborn?
I don't agree with all Torrey's points, and his world view is far too grim for my tastes, but that's what's so great about America, we are a country of opinions, loud-mouthed and shouting at the top of our lungs. Some of us are like William, meek and weary, frightened of the big picture. Some of us are William's sister, Marge, completely without hope existing only through routine. Other's are like Torrey, stepping up to the soapbox to bitch about the woes of the world. At least those guys are doing something about society's failings.
Two things I do agree with Torrey on is that violence begets violence, and that abusive bullies need their comeuppance. It isn't the death of their mother that keeps William and Marge defeated, but the yoke of their drunken father. And as my bishop is often heard saying, sometimes the only way a jerk is going to learn is through a punch in the nose. And while the climax between the family is seen coming in the first few minutes, the flashbacks revealing the family as they once were weren't. More often then not, flashbacks hinder a production with needless exposition, but here they add the perfect emotional punch sealing the need for a violent resolution.
Sometimes life isn't so black and white, the answers lie in the grey tones. Why would a young girl leave her baby in the trash? Why would Marge allow herself to be trapped in her home? How is it that William can communicate with God? That's part of the beauty of GOD IS ALONE, there are no clear-cut answers. And like the best in underground cinema, viewers are asked to draw their own conclusions rather than have them handed to them colored in crayon.
Again, some might be turned off by the length of GOD IS ALONE, and the long-winded walking sequences do become repetitive, but the movie is the closest you'll come to pure underground cinema for a long time.
Other Reviews:
Screaming Stoner
Unspeakable Magazine