The Same River Twice (2004)
"Never trust a hippie..." - Tenpole
Tudor in the song "Who Killed Bambi"
"I'll beat up the next hippie I
see..." - Stiv Bators in "Ain't Nothing to Do"
If there's anything more boring
than a hippie, it's an old hippie. And if there's
anything more boring that a hippie with a movie camera,
than it's an old hippie with a video camcorder.
"The Same River Twice" is like hanging
out with your dad's old friends and watching their
old home movies. In other words: boring and tedious.
This film, and I use that term loosely, is made by
Rob Moss, a boring old fart who had some old footage
of his boring hippie days where he and his friends
were naked and high all day long. He decides to videotape
his friends lives as they are now (every single one
of them is as dull as fuck) and edit the footage together.
It doesn't matter that nothing about it is cohesive
or poignant or thoughtful. The negative factor is
obvious: Every frame of the film is horribly boring.
Why this film is called "The Same
River Twice" is anybody's guess. The "flashback" 60's
footage is a bunch of naked hippies on the banks of
a river that runs through the Grand Canyon. Sometimes
there is a shot from inside a boat going over some
rough water. Moss has five minutes of this footage
and repeats it ad nauseum in the film. We never learn
anything about where these people came from, why they
are there (we are told they are "guides" but we never
see them guide anyone anywhere), how they met, nothing.
Fuck, we don't even learn what the name of the God
damn river is.
Then there's the modern day footage
where we learn very little about the people. A couple
of them are politicians. (The only thing more boring
than an old hippie is a old hippie who works for the
government). One gets testicular cancer. One is still
a river guide and, again, we never seem him guide
a single fucking solitary soul anywhere. For what
it's worth, Moss, who was a part of the hippie group,
never once tells us anything about himself either.
Hell, I've never heard of him. Is he some sort of
established filmmaker? Who knows. One thing is for
sure: He's as dreary as his friends.
For a while, because of the title,
you think that maybe this group is going to get together
and go back on the river again. Let me kill the suspense
for you: Nope. They don't. They don't even have a
fucking reunion.
This is a stupid fucking movie.
To call it a movie is to be kind. This is a stupid
fucking collection of images with sound that is like
watching your parent's friends pull out the old projector
and screen some of their old home movies. I'd rather
have my eyes plucked out by pigeons. This movie isn't
a narrative. It isn't a documentary. It isn't even
really a video journal. I don't know what the fuck
it is.
At one time Moss was going to call
this film "From Peyote to Prozac." A better title
would be "From Sophomoric to Boring."
Notes:
This piece of shit debuted at Sundance
where it was nominated for an award. It was also nominated
for an Independent Spirit Award.
Viewed at the Dobie at a screening
held by the Austin Film Society and the theater in
March of 2004. Rebecca Campbell, head of AFS, introduced
the film. She also mentioned that AFS would be doing
a screening of Greg Pak's "Robot Stories" (which I
saw at SXSW last year) soon.
Some ladies sitting behind me were
talking about "Super
Size Me" and this year's SXSW Film Festival somewhat.
I swear one of them said something about "Zellner"
and then kept talking about someone named Nathan,
as if that were her boyfriend.
