Surviving Desire

I consider this film to be one of the undiscovered gems of the 90's, and I'd rank it among Hartley's 3 best works (along with "Trust" and his masterpiece: "Henry Fool"). The short running time shouldn't detract from its stature. (It's too long to be a "short", too short to be a "feature"...think of it as a novella on celluloid.) The dialogue is Hartley at his most deft and agile, the chemistry between the leads is magnificent, and the film is inventive and original at every turn, taking us into brilliant culdesacs and then returning us to the narrative with an easy grace. Quite simply, it's one of my all-time favorites, and I watch it at least once or twice a year on an old VHS copy, which I've nearly worn out. I love this movie.

I've found that with any director with a very unique but overtly quirky vision (Anderson, Jarmusch, and now Hartley) I'm at first immensely charmed by them but my enthusiasm wears thin with time as the quirks begin to feel less like quirks and more like cliches of the auteur's own creation; it's somewhat ironic that filmmakers who once felt so original can begin to feel more and more like caricatures as they further emphasize what made them original. The films from them that I take to most are likely to be the ones I see first, which might mean that my ambivalence towards this movie is more my problem than it is Hartley's. But I also still love Trust, so there must be something that connected with me there that's absent here- and I think this kind of auteur often forgets what it is that made their films connect with people and an over-reliance on their established style can become a copout, especially the quirky styles that have a tendency to undercut emotionally resonant moments (there are moments however where a film's quirks can allow it to express something in a purer way than a more grounded film is capable of; Jude's dance scene after he realizes he's in love was wonderful).

Tight, intelligent, witty, original. One of Hartleys very best films perfectly executed.. The culmination of his craft.

For me this one stands out of other work I have seen from Hal Hartley to date (5 films including Trust but not including Unbelievable Truth). This one left a much warmer feeling inside me than his other films. It had less black humour in it, but the characters were more open, warmer, became closer somehow. Its actually surprising that I liked this film that much as after finding Hal for myself, I have watched 5 cassettes worth of his films in a few weeks timeframe (one of them contains 3 of his short films including this one). I was actually afraid that I might get bored of his style, his means of presenting a story and characters, as the means, style change only a little from film to film. He has so many "trademarks" about his filmmaking. I needn't have been afraid. I can feel this one.

Spoilers herein. I'm a recent convert to Hartley's World. And I think he may be only a tentative convert himself. Superficially, he focuses our attention on abstract reductionism in storytelling. Not unsurprisingly, that focuses our attention on the story. This allows him to add more and more explicit metatext which is similarly clarified. The relationship and integration of this stuff is more simply and directly integrated in the story as well: representation and reality; naming and meaning; reflex and deliberation. The effectiveness of this is breathtaking. If he actually had something to SAY, this could be a lifealtering experience. I call this the "Fight Club" effect. Like Jimi Hendrix, he distracts us, opens a pipe deep into our soul, and then pours in the same vacuous truths he reacts and preaches against. Fortunately, he grew sufficiently to satisfy me by ?One True Thing.? He might turn out to be important. Certainly his cinematic intuitions are very sharp. Watch this for a deep understanding of rhythm, and not just the ordinary rhythm of pacing, but in the integrated visual poetry of punctuated attitude. Ted's Evaluation: 3 of 4: Worth watching.

As Hartley goes through and destroys most of the cliches of traditional love stories, from Shakespeare (with the drunken KATE scene, ref. The Taming of the Shrew) to the musically challenged dance number by Donovan and two extras (a gem which turns all those Hollywood musical numbers on their head. What happens when you're in a funk about a frustrating and failing relationship and you don't feel like singing in the rain?)

You either like Hal Hartley's specific, offbeat, deadpan brand of filmmaking, or you don't; me, I tend to like it more than not, but "Surviving Desire" is really more like a bridge between his full-length projects. It's a slight yet amusing exercise in wordplay and verbal one-upmanship. There is not much more to say about it, because that's pretty much it: 4-5 people playing word games for 54 minutes. Some of the lines are quite insightful, like one about why Donovan chooses not to believe in anything. **1/2 out of 4.

Surviving desire was made for American Television and is only about an hour long. Despite the limited running time, Hal Hartley has produced in this film his best work. Using his trademark non-naturalistic dialogue and intellectualism, Hartley builds odd, but very believable characters. This is a touching film, expertly made and contains Martin Donovan's finest performance as the frustrated Jude. Matt Malloy is also fantastic as Henry. The mixture of high art, the emotional, the bizarre and the mundane make this often ignored opus a must see for anyone interested in cinema. An understated and ever-fresh film full of brilliance. Not the best film ever made, but absolutely one of my favourites.

This movie is not for everyone; the illiterate and anyone who can't appreciate dialogue that sounds just as dead pan as it should aren't going to understand what's going on here at all. This movie takes a simple relationship, and, in a rather dead pan, witty manner, the characters go through the motions of a long term relationship in about a day. The dialogue is absolutely delicious, and the supporting characters are wonderful. The movie does a magnificent job of dissecting the personality of stereotypical people and relationships. Those who can appreciate the style will be rolling on the floor laughing.

As I watched this, I thought it was funny, kind of. Strong hint on the kind of. Oh my god, the acting was terrible. It was so bad...which disappointed me, as Hal Hartley is big on the whole condition acting- using physical ailments to change how one acts. I've used his method while doing a monologue from Schindler's List and my teacher said it was one of the most powerful monologues done by a student that he's seen- and that was the first time he suggested a Hal Hartley method. So I was expecting Surviving Desire to have exquisite acting. And when Martin Donovan opened his mouth, and twisted his face into what was supposed to be a pained or deep or spaced out expression, I laughed out loud and my teacher glared at me. But man, he was absolutely Oscar winning compared to everybody else (save the woman who kept asking everyone to marry her- she wasn't too bad). While he and the girl had a lot of chemistry, it just didn't...work. I don't know what was missing. I think she was just too much of a hot shot for him. And I know the story was trying to be deep but it just didn't get there for me. It seemed to be forcing it on me.