Leave No Trace [DVD]

This is a movie about *choices*. I am reminded of "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (I'm just reading about it, in Pagan Kennedy's "Platforms"), where the token black guy they hire and train gets a desk job, so he gets sick of it and goes out onto the street with his training, for black militant groups. Here, a former army guy rejects civilization -- the "let us take care of that for you!" tendency that dulls choices, deprives of us of life essences. What happens when *every day*, life is a ship that might float away from you? Do you use the propane, because you're hungry, or are you too low on it? These questions come up in the movie. It's like something out of Coupland's "Generation X" or zine press of the '90s (see Pagan Kennedy, above) -- rejecting or simply *backing off* from fraudulent civilization choices, from false guarantees that not only don't work and prove hollow, but aren't often *followed up on* by the guaranteer.Still, this is a movie about *adjustment* -- and that happens fairly early on, once we get a sense of the terrain."We needed to know what was going on here?""With dogs?" (she points)"It's a big park."(she nods her assent)This is a good film (it's shot *very* well -- it's hard not to notice, and whoever D.P.'ed it did a *really* good job), but it's about a lot more than entertainment, or engagement, ultimately -- it's about edging into the periphery of the psyche at the edge of civilization that only avant-garde works from the post-'50s and '60s SF and Beat literature seem to engage, to map out territorially *as an ambition* (I'm thinking of Samuel R. Delany's remarkable "Dhalgren," of course, and pick a Burroughs -- let's say "The Ticket That Exploded," and some Robbe-Grillet like "The Erasers" or "In the Labyrinth," and Pynchon's "V." up through "Gravity's Rainbow" -- that help? #haha). I'm noticing "Some Dark Hollow" is performed by on-screen musicians near the end (after they *already* play a song or two -- and we gently-float by *encounter* them) and, considering this is the title Jack Womack takes for his explanation for former-Southerner William Gibon's influence on the nascent-and-developing world wide web in his essay on "Neuromancer" in a 2000 celebratory edition, I think this is hardly a coincidence or accident -- the movie is about the over-arching world above us, and living within it. As they say in Russia (the current dissidents, the Situationists or artists or whatever-they-are), "you build a little corner in hell." We have it better here. The movie shows it.It's 'PG' so kids can see it and watch it again years later.Don't be fooled. This is a model for living.SIMILAR TEXTS: "Evasion" by Anonymous (CrimethInc., 2002 -- available as free .pdf, Google it!); "Green is the New Red" by Will Potter (City Lights publishers, 2011); "The Orange Eats Creeps" (novel) by Grace Krilanovich (Two Dollar Radio, 2010); and my own "Icosadyadria" (Espresso Book Machine, 2017, see Kirkus Review for more!).

…are a home now for me…Through these fields of destruction, baptisms of fire, I’ve witnessed your suffering…”A father and daughter, well-suited to each other, deep in survivalist mode, attempting to live in a rainy coastal park near Portland, Oregon. Their past is never explained, except for the sledgehammer that says it all – on their trip into town for more supplies, there is the stop at the VA. A few drugs picked up, to be sold to other homeless vets.Debra Granik directed this movie, which was debuted at Sundance and Cannes in 2018. Ben Foster plays Will, the troubled vet, and Thomasin McKenzie plays Tom. The movie is based on the novel, “My Abandonment,” authored by Peter Rock and published in 2010. He is a Professor of English at Reed College and the author of a number of other novels, of which “The Night Swimmers” appears to be interesting.In watching the aptly entitled “Leave No Trace,” I could not help thinking about the 12-hour CBS video tape series on Vietnam with Walter Cronkite, which has now been transferred to DVD. An entire hour segment is dedicated to those veterans who did not want to re-integrate into mainstream society. For unknown reason, a disproportionate number gravitated to the rural areas of Washington and Oregon.“Just play the game… we are doing this for your own good…” is the prevailing message of the do-gooders, after the authorities captured Will and Tom. A battery of psychological tests. The admonition to fill in the circle completely and make no stray marks, because it might confuse the computer that reads the results. Daughter Tom makes the correct observation that you could just ask us. A perennial theme of books and movies, which is realized sometimes in real life, that there are those that cannot “play the game” and decide to bail, even though their physical needs have been properly provided for.“But dad, I don’t have the same problems as you.” So says Tom when she decides bailing might also be appropriate for her. And being a “trail angel,” putting out supplies, becomes an avocation, taught to her by a good-hearted mentor at the rural trailer park, that she will call home.We’ve all become fallen a bit more into the survivalist mode during the Time of COVID. Regrettably, the director did not use the subject lyrics from an old Dire Strait’s song, “Brothers in Arms” to end the movie. Still, with some wonderful twists and turns, it deserves 5-stars.

I was intending to write a glowing review but instead I suggest you read the review by Moira. She says it all.Suffice to say I received the film two days ago and have watched it twice so caught all the subtle points the second time round. Near perfection in every detail. Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie is fabulous as the daughter and Ben Foster as her father is sensational. Supporting cast all excellent and as for the forest back-drop...to die for. Best film I've seen this year. VERY highly recommended.

We watched it on Mark Kermode's recommendation - he said it was the best film of the year 'by a mile' and questioned why it had been overlooked by the Oscars etc.It's a rightly sympathetic story of a man with PTSD who can no longer settle in society and lives, raising his early teen daughter, in the wild. I agree with the comments made by someone here that it is 'moving but not manipulative'. The journey for the daughter (and the father) in the film are shown, we believe, very realistically. There are no clichés about teens or social services jumping to conclusions, and the people they met are human, meaning they might be bad or good but I won't spoil the plot here.Beautifully directed by Debra Granik with a gently unfolding narrative. Wonderfully acted by Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (and in fact from all in the main supporting cast). The ending is very well done - and subtly left in doubt until the final few moments.

A strange film. Leave no trace reminds me a lot of Captain Fantastic with Viggo Mortensen, with Leave no trace for me the far better film.In Captain Fantastic the father leads his children from living in the wild in the US back to civilisation. In Leave no trace the father, called Will or Dad in the film, played by Ben Foster, brings his daughter up in the woods of north-west USA, and despite trying to keep her there, the daugher ends up back in civilisation.Fairly quickly the viewer will see that the father, called Will or Dad in the film, is mentally ill. The film hints at what the illness is and its cause, which is post traumatic stress disorder picked up whilst on active service in the US military. In real life there are former veterans who live in the woods of north-west USA, so that part of the story-line is credible. The rest is simply very far-fetched and you have to suspend disbelief in order to be able to enjoy the film on its own terms.Will is bringing up his daughter as a single father / widower his wife having died. No information is given as to when, where, and how she died, but she leaves behind a daughter who lives camping with her dad in the woods of north-west USA, with forays into Portland for provisions, and with the nearest neighbours normally being fellow veterans camping wild in the same woods as Will and his daughter.A sort of Stockholm Syndrome develops between the daughter and her Dad. The Authorities / Social Services are the evil ones from whom the pair have to hide, and the girl buys that story, until one day the girl is spotted by someone and the authorities step in.Slowly, but surely, the girl realises that her Dad is seriously mentally ill and that if she is to have a life she'll have to separate from him, which in the end she does, and that is when the film ends. The girl stays with civilisation, however basic and close to what she is accustomed to, and the Dad wanders off on his own to continue to live in the wild and hide from the authorities and civilisation.In my opinion, the success of the film hangs on the actress, Thomasina Harcourt McKenzie called Tom in the film. The cover on my DVD does not do her and her role justice. She is very good looking and is in my view the star of the film. Casting her in the lead role was spot on. Give or take a year or two, she was just the right age - younger mid-teens somewhere. If she had been older, a sort of Harrison Ford - Anne Heche Seven days, Seven nights type of relationship, the focus would have been on Ben Foster, called Will or Dad in the film, and I don't think that it would have worked anywhere near as well.Also what was excellent was the total absence of sex and nudity. This is also crucial to the success of the film. The girl made it clear that nobody was sexually abusing her, which was a relief, and whilst I doubt that young children will find the film of interest, if one came into the room whilst I was looking at it, I would not be embarrassed.

If you liked Winter's Bone or the Revenant, or indeed any other film, where nothing happens for the duration and one of the lead characters is one dimensional and the dialect is little more than grunting, you'll love this!! I didn't...on the DVD case it says "One of the year's very best" but that review was posted by "Little White Lies".. big fat lies more like, if this was the best, the worst must be pretty grim

Ben Forster has earnt the label actor. His done action, sci fi, drama, comedy and now with this fine film you can add "Leave no Trace ". A man affected by war and trying to adjust to a world that no longer needs him as a soldier. Just looking for peace and solitude, shouldn`t be too hard.. Well as the film develops you find out how hard it really is. This I can see becoming a cult classic.