Junebug
Junebug captures for me the essence of return. The return not merely a retracing of footsteps, but a transcendence of thick curtains of carven emotion, the return to an old tree stump that, weathered, still bears a lover’s promise, nearly as indelible as the mark of memory.
The still images brim with latent energy, or maybe it is latent stories, reminiscent of the style of Edward Yang, director of Yi Yi. They bring me, not to North Carolina per se, but into the home and lives of the family. Not an outstanding family by any means, yet painful and beautiful undercurrents ply the silences between each super-realistic member. I feel sucked into this world, amazed that I am not in some different dimension. This feeling of complete setting is echoed in Capturing the Friedmans, and even quirky Napoleon Dynamite. The object at hand is not a plot, per se. Plot is almost an ugly word for what seems to unfold as a matter of course. I am not the audience; I am a bystander, observer, because the object was not to entertain.
Madeline and George are transformed by the powerful, invisible forces in place there. I would almost call these karmic memories; they were once created by people, but through years of reinforcement have permeated every aspect of the environment to the point of radiating from the furniture, the floor, the very foundations of the home. Johnny’s presence is Jupiter in gravity, but he is no enigma. Ashley is on the verge of being a caricature, a simpleton, as she would be if Junebug subscribed to sound-bitism, but morphs into an angelic child capable of heroic long-suffering and understanding. It is this way with people, director Phil Morrison seems to say. When you step into their world and give yourself to it in earnest, as does Madeline, also seemingly born on angel’s wings, you will feel their pain and you will find in them a reflection of yourself.
It is also a transformation to childhood. That indescribable feeling of shedding one’s adult skin when one’s parents are nearby. Out of her art world, her work seems almost superfluous in the face of human realities. Out of her art world, her work has little meaning and little value. No longer respected from a distance, she is appraised up close. Even we appraise her city-wise mannerisms, her cheek to cheek kisses, her expressive arms that cover all distances. Hands not fit for cooking or sewing. And we judge harshly the would-be (nightly, it seems) sexual racket in the “screwing around” room.
And finally a comment on that art. Shipped from its cradle to posh galleries in Chicago or New York, can it possibly retain the context supporting its genesis? Is it simply a search for the bizarre or abstruse or shocking? That we may come in contact with it and thus unlock secret passages in our own minds? Art is experienced internally. The deepest of art has its emotional roots in the inner life of the individual experiencing it. The forms and shapes and sounds and smells serve to awaken a special sense about ourselves. We export them for thousands and millions because we are unable to sustain that search and awareness within ourselves otherwise.