Sunday, May 19, 2013

Free Like a Bird


Light Years Away (1981) - Tanner 3.5/5
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Jonah (Mick Ford), a scrubby 25 year-old bartender in the city has a chance encounter with Yoshka (Trevor Howard), an eccentric old man. He throws a book at the young man and disappears. The old man's name and address are on the book. With some difficulty, Jonah locates Yoshka in the middle of nowhere, living in an auto shop junkyard. Secretive Yoshka works locked in a garage most of the day, while putting Jonah to work on meaningless tasks in exchange for meager meals. Taking the old man as his guide, the wayward Jonah is up for anything. But the old man is real headcase: one day, he emerges from the garage all blooded up, asking Jonah to bury him up to the neck. Three days later, all healed, he is as good as new. After much taunting for not 'getting it' by Yoshka, Jonah finally snaps, sets junkyard ablaze and injures himself. Then the cranky old man finally lets his apprentice in his secret- in his garage, filled with birds, he is building a pair of wings and he will fly away beyond the galaxy. And when he takes off, he will leave everything to the young man.

Yoshka might be a looney but he opened Jonah's eyes to see the spiritual side of things. Light Years Away's free-like-a-bird, society-as-jail message is a bit too esoteric and dated for me, especially it is set in 2000 (I read that Tanner's referencing his 1976 film, Jonah Who will be 25 in the year 2000, about a group of people living in a Swiss commune). But I liked that Jonah is his own man. There are a lot of differences between the two men. Unlike Yoshka, Jonah is still rebellious young man who still wants to emjoy and love life. I loved its melancholic yet warm tone. It also has plenty of hauntingly beautiful images (shot in picturesque coastal Ireland).

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