GET LOW (2009)

Get low (2009)

Genre: Drama, Mystery 

Director: Aaron Schneider

Writers: Chris Provenzano (screenplay) C. Gaby Mitchell  

Stars: Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek 

My score 3/5

When that white logo appears on the screen says ‘Sony picture classics’ I by experience know that I’m up for a slow ride. But a ride most often does not end when the movie end but give me some insight of life which I can carry on for the future. ‘Get low’ is something quite the same. 

It starts with a scene of a burning house. Fires blazing and about to tumble in the night and someone falls down from the roof who is also partially covered with flames and running away from the main scene. The times and whereabouts of this scene is unknown but the story touches up to its very roots of this scene very emotionally at the final few minutes. And the next set of scenes wraps around and old man named Bush who lives in solidarity in a huge land of timber just spending days talking with his mule and looking at the picture of a young lady every night with mixed feelings of sadness and joy. By then it comes to notice that this story takes place around 1930s in America. 

 

Old man Bush who has many scary and unspoken stories to tell about his past seems to be living with regret. And the community where he lives in does not welcome him pleasantly either. And knowing that he is getting too old to be standing on the earth for long he sets up to do something which no one else have tried before. That is an arranging a funeral party for him while he is alive. For the amusement of many no one knows at the beginning what his intentions are but when the story rolls it becomes clear that he is looking for a confession. A confession for some event which took place 40 years ago, which made him isolate him from the society and live with regret for that much long years on his own place which he calls as a prison. 

 

I like the cinematography of ‘Get low’. The details are well created and the overall theme of loneliness is quite well achieved. Veteran actor Robert Duvall plays Bush and the rest of the strong few characters belong to the two people who works closely with him while arranging the funeral party from the funeral house and Mattie who has known Bush for a long time and has their own history. These few characters fill in the whole movie.

This is a movie about regret. The regret of being responsible for something which must have being prevented and knowing that it went wrong because you were not doing what you were suppose to be doing. Slowly yet effectively ‘Get low’ delivers this message. But for some reason I do not find it be exceptionally inspiring. But maybe you will see it a bit differently. 

Trailer