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Dec 06, 2019 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Released in 2006, Old Joy was a unique and utterly compelling little film in which either nothing happens, or a lot happens – depending entirely on your personal interpretation. The film follows Mark (Daniel London), Kurt (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy himself, Will Oldham), and a dog, Lucy, on a camping trip into the Mount Hood National Forest near Portland, Oregon. It’s clear the two old friends’ lives’ have diverged greatly over the years. Mark has a house, a stressful job, and a baby over the immediate horizon; Kurt, meanwhile, is still living a nomadic, bohemian lifestyle. (He may be living in his van—Old Joy is vague on many of these details.) As they attempt to reconnect during their time in the wood, the heartbreaking gap between them in their new lives hangs over every conversation.

Most of Old Joy is built around these conversations and the beautifully-shot surroundings in which they take place. (As the setting moves from the rundown areas of Portland to the natural grandeur of the forest, the soundtrack shifts from Bush-era, Air America talk radio to the gorgeous, ambling score by Yo La Tengo – it’s nearly as pronounced a change as the shift from black and white to color in The Wizard of Oz.)

It’s clear Old Joy is a small film, and that’s not meant as a knock in any way. The movie was shot over a couple weeks, with a crew of fewer than ten even when you include the dog. There’s a level of intimacy present between the viewer and the film that’s extremely rare in cinema: Old Joy feels like a private moment between two longtime friends. It doesn’t feel scripted, although most of it was – only Kurt’s memorable, final story was improvised by Oldham, and that was based on something that had actually just happened to him offset.

Old Joy wasn’t Kelly Reichardt’s first film, but it was the breakthrough that landed her name on critic’s end-of-year lists and established her as one of the 21st Century’s exciting new filmmakers. It’s a movie that conveys the feelings of its characters in a manner that’s more subtle and natural-feeling than most of cinema. Recihardt achieves this effect as much through her filmmaking style as the two leads’ strong performances.

Criterion’s Blu-ray presents a very nice transfer for the low-budget feature. One of the main extra features is a newly-recorded conversation London and Oldham, which feels almost like the sort of talk their characters would have had about the filmmaking experience thirteen years later – details are remembered differently by each, and awkward pauses abound. There are also interviews with Reichardt, cinematographer Peter Sillen, and writer Jonathan Raymond, whose short story served the basis for the movie. (The story itself is included in the booklet.) It’s a nice bundle of supplements for an independent film that’s held up very well since its early 2000s release.

(www.criterion.com/films/29062-old-joy)