Wonderful road movie, wonderful Michael Parks !
It might be an update of William Wellman 's "wild boys of the road " a gem from the thirties .Beautiful losers .
At the beginning of the movie one knows almost nothing of both characters : an adopted child,the frail seventeen-year old Daphné heads for Los Angeles ,her promised land where her biological dad should welcome her with open arms; she's a naive unexperimented girl,who does not even know the meaning of "thumbing a ride" ; her longing for her father, her dream of an affectionate reunion, her mom's letters she treasures which makes her think of a romantic love affair of long ago ,win over the viewer.
But it's Fargo (Michael Parks, in an oscar caliber performance) who ,little by little, becomes the main character :when he appears ,he looks like a young bum sure of himself , who shows himself in the buff after swimming , who seems armed for life ,in spite of his poverty :he 's begging for some cents . But further acquaintance shows this: he's an orphan (when you're an orphan , you'll never fit in a society based on family ,I know the score), he's as frail and as love -starving as his runaway/protégée ;even though he could find a steady job (instead of fruit picking here and there) ,he would never opt for a family life , not even for Daphné's love ; he resents the society for their lawful happiness, and this hatred explodes in the father's office .
Fargo and Daphné are in a dead end ; his mom is dead ,his father's in jail ,but it seems that the girl has bleak future too:one knows nothing of her adoptive parents ,maybe "they struggled hard all their life to get by" ,but all in all , facing the bourgeois selfishness of certain adults , she undertands Fargo's rebellion.The superbly filmed last picture is perhaps the road to nowhere .
One of the most beautiful road movies I know, Brian Hutton's first effort and in my book his towering achievement ,topping his war movies ("when eagles dare" ) or his thrillers ("death watch") ,with a very small budget at that.
At the beginning of the movie one knows almost nothing of both characters : an adopted child,the frail seventeen-year old Daphné heads for Los Angeles ,her promised land where her biological dad should welcome her with open arms; she's a naive unexperimented girl,who does not even know the meaning of "thumbing a ride" ; her longing for her father, her dream of an affectionate reunion, her mom's letters she treasures which makes her think of a romantic love affair of long ago ,win over the viewer.
But it's Fargo (Michael Parks, in an oscar caliber performance) who ,little by little, becomes the main character :when he appears ,he looks like a young bum sure of himself , who shows himself in the buff after swimming , who seems armed for life ,in spite of his poverty :he 's begging for some cents . But further acquaintance shows this: he's an orphan (when you're an orphan , you'll never fit in a society based on family ,I know the score), he's as frail and as love -starving as his runaway/protégée ;even though he could find a steady job (instead of fruit picking here and there) ,he would never opt for a family life , not even for Daphné's love ; he resents the society for their lawful happiness, and this hatred explodes in the father's office .
Fargo and Daphné are in a dead end ; his mom is dead ,his father's in jail ,but it seems that the girl has bleak future too:one knows nothing of her adoptive parents ,maybe "they struggled hard all their life to get by" ,but all in all , facing the bourgeois selfishness of certain adults , she undertands Fargo's rebellion.The superbly filmed last picture is perhaps the road to nowhere .
One of the most beautiful road movies I know, Brian Hutton's first effort and in my book his towering achievement ,topping his war movies ("when eagles dare" ) or his thrillers ("death watch") ,with a very small budget at that.