Off The Map

Off The Map came out on DVD recently with a great commentary track and a Sundance Anatomy of a Scene feature. The story is from a play by Joan Ackerman and she also wrote the screenplay. This gives the film a grounded, real feel, instead of story by committee, as we see so often these days. Although I thought the director made a very apt comment on that; there is the story you write, the story you film and the story you edit.

This story is pretty simple on some levels, it's about a man, a woman and their twelve year old daughter living off the land in northern New Mexico in the late 70's. They decided to follow Joni Mitchell's advice and get themselves back to the garden. This is where IRS agent, William Gibbs finds Joan Allen's character, Arlene, nude. It's Adam and Eve all over again, if Adam was a lost and damaged soul trying hard to fit into "the system". Instead he ends up in love with Arlene, and in love with the incredible landscape... so much so that he ends up there for all time, chalk pastel in hand. Whatever he couldn't find with the IRS, he found in the desert, with a man, a woman and a child.

Living a lifestyle of ultimate simplicity, they have no iPods, no iBooks, no cell phones, no phone at all, no TV, no movies, no internet, no electricity, no plumbing, no music... sounds pretty sparse huh? I don't think I could do it, and I've lived in a car for months at a time, just to be in that kind of landscape.

Yet, halfway through the film, William tells the depressed Sam Elliot character, Charlie, that he's the luckiest, most brilliant man he's ever met. He owns his own home, has years worth of firewood, food and clothes, a beautiful wife and daughter, and all the freedom in the world. And, it's true, Charlie has opportunities for happiness that few urban, or even rural Americans have. Moreover, he has his freedom, which very few Americans have, at least in this way, true self sufficiency.

Although, hmmm, lots of folks all over the world have it. Many call it poverty. And the "free, self-sufficient" people of the world survive at God's pleasure. They live a drought or locust away from starvation. Anyway, Charlie doesn't feel like the luckiest genius in the world during this film. I guess some people are depressed and you don't know it unless you really get to know them. With Charlie, it's pretty obvious, he just sits around in the outhouse all day. That's depressed. No wonder his wife, luscious angel that she is, gets pretty peeved when it's time to go... did she not notice all that open desert out there?

I did. The director, Campbell Scott, who also directed and starred in The Secret Life of Dentists, was inspired by some of the incredible landscape photography in classics such as Terrence Mallick's in Days of Heaven. New Mexico has long inspired artists such as Georgia O'Keefe and the fictional William Gibbs, who exhibits his work in Santa Fe, an incredible art community.

Artists do tend to congregate where there is "good light", which often translates, to me, as clear air and gorgeous vistas. Maui, Carmel and Sedona all have active local art communities. But truly, Santa Fe pales them. So I applaud this film for its incredibly inspiring panoramas and the attention it pays to art and Santa Fe and a lifestyle few dare to lead.

Anyway, the twelve year old girl grows up to be Amy Brenneman, who, as a pensive adult Bo, looks out of her corporate job window to think about her carefree, if quiet, childhood, and the summer her usually powerful Dad was so under-stimulated he decided not to talk for six months... till he got some antidepressants that made him attack his friends.

I wonder what she's thinking there. Where's my iPod? How did I handle a childhood so boring that the only entertainment we had was listening to Mom read a book? Thank God my life was so empty because now I'm the only Gen-Xer in my whole company without ADD? I miss a life that was real and free and filled with love and adventure? Who knows, but this DVD should get you thinking.