My Own Private Idaho

My Own Private Idaho (1991)
a film by Gus Van Sant

The circumstances that leads us to find a particular film and make it meaning full are as unpredictable as the places where movies can take you. I found My Own Private Idaho in a poster by the twin churches in Piazza del Popolo in Rome and it took me to the endless plains of Idaho and the loneliness and bitter beauty of this story.

I knew Gus Van Sant's work and I wanted to be fully awake for this story. His films have felt for me like a moving sedatives and I wanted to be in the right attitude for this one. So I decide to follow the story of this character in his circular path, starting and ending on the same road, on the same loop, isolated and rejected. It was moving to follow him in the middle of such a beautiful set of images. Endless fields of wheat, two identical churches in a foggy day and the rooftops of Portland frame this tough story in a halo of beauty and colour that contrast with the toughness of the story.

It needs a particular state of mind to watch this movie and catch the brush of solitude and the feeling that I can describe with other words than happy-sad. This feeling is brought mainly by the character of River Phoenix who is absolutely great in this film and who delivers most of the intense load of this outcast character. On the other side the rest of the characters help to construct the reality around the main thread and in the same sense help to make the context that makes the story so light but emotional at the same time.

There is no way to leave this film without wanting to talk about the interpretations and the influences, without trying to debate or comment. The only way to do it is watching it and is worth taking your time to do it. Pick a large screen and quiet day.