Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

“St. Nick” (2009)

Directed by David Lowery

Satisfaction:Thrilled Tags: SXSW, David Lowery, St. Nick

For me, David Lowery hits and misses with his short films. The ones that hit, such as one of the “panels” of his triptych, A Catalog of Anticipations, blend honesty, a little bit of fear, and the director’s wonderful eye for dark, almost classical photography. The misses, like The Outlaw Son, border on pretentiousness and a need to feel “artsy,” seeking to make something profound out of nothing. I wasn’t sure which Lowery I was getting with what’s being billed as his first feature film, St. Nick (I guess he’s distancing himself from Lullaby).

Two kids, a boy around 11 or 12 and a girl just a few years younger, are living on their own, having run away from home to have a Calvin and Hobbes “Yukon, Ho!”-like adventure. They sleep in the woods until the boy discovers a run-down home, breaks in, and promptly moves his sister and himself in. The film quietly observes their every-day survival as they try to keep warm, find food, find entertainment, and try not to think about home.

There were times when the director’s visual choices had me smiling in the darkness, and there were times where I was scratching my head. St. Nick contains brilliant shots—some a little flashy, and some just perfect in their timing and length. But other times, Lowery either tried too hard or didn’t try hard enough. Lengthy shots are typical in St. Nick, but sometimes unnecessary. The boy tries to start a fire to keep the two warm, and we get a static over-the-shoulder shot as the boy lights the match, sets it to his pile of sticks and leaves, and watches the flame grow, travel, and eventually die out. The shot lets the moment play out, and wisely so; it has an understated beauty. Yet I think of another shot showing the kids walking across a long field, staying on them in a static wide, panning once they reach the edge of the screen. But why? Seeing them walk across the entire length of the shot was pointless enough, so why keep going? It was forcing a simple shot, trying to make it into something it wasn’t.

The old house that the kids shack up in gets a lot of beauty shots from Lowery, accentuating the old wood, the dark crevices, and the rusty nails. Beautiful still or slow-moving photography. Yet in the very next shot the camera will be following the kids around the house, hand-held, right up to their face. Not that hand-held cinematography doesn’t have its merits, but it just didn’t fit the atmosphere of this project. Rather, it seemed like some shots were meticulously planned, and others, they simply said, “Eh, just follow them around with the camera.” The inconsistencies were, at times, jarring. A more cohesive visual experience could have taken this film over the top.

Over the top? That would mean that the film is pretty close to the top as-is, correct? Yes, that’s correct. St. Nick had the potential to be pretentious; if Lowery had mishandled the simple story of these two kids and had tried to make it something it wasn’t (which he almost does at times, thanks to an overly-ambitious and unnecessary score), this film could have merely been annoying. But it’s not, it’s engaging and haunting. Lowery stays out of his own way long enough to let the film breath. This in turn allows me to breath and become involved in the small, poetic moments.

I didn’t think I liked the film this much until I began looking at it in retrospect. If a film can keep me lingering on specific shots, moments, and looks, I know it’s doing something right. Shots of animal bones, so lovingly arranged. Moments of eating birthday cake with a racing, fearful heart. The looks between a man and a child, with no words spoken, but complete understanding (the church scene is my absolute favorite of the film, a haunting, unadulterated, true moment that I just can’t get out of my mind).

St. Nick, among other things, is known for being a protector of children. The boy and the girl in Lowery’s film are in need of that, but you wonder if St. Nick is really a culmination of circumstances. Every encounter and non-encounter plays a role in how these children can or can’t survive, so you wonder if there was a steady hand over this situation. That’s not to say that anything ever feels predisposed. Again, truth comes through.

The film has flaws, some in the technical areas, and some even in the storytelling. But it’s a heartfelt piece that, if you allow it to, will carefully suck you into a quiet world, enabling you to see truths that you may have otherwise missed.