Traces of Death Easier to Watch Than The Way We Get By

A A A Comments (2) By Nick Pinkerton Wednesday, Jul 15 2009

Details

The Way We Get By
Directed by Aron Gaudet
International Film Circuit
Opens July 17, IFC Center

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Aron Gaudet's documentary is a combination of sure-fire lump-in-the-throat subjects: soldiers returning from war and elderly folks contemplating The End. Traces of Death is easier to watch. The film stars a trio of Maine retirees, who make themselves available, all hours, day and night, to greet, shake hands, and thank—in broad New English—troops returning stateside from Iraq via the Bangor Airport. The title refers to the idea that, by scheduling their lives as a welcoming committee, these men and woman give structure and meaning to existences lacking both. (Says one: "I don't know what I'll do when they all get home.") It's the stuff of a fine short on what any Bowling Alone reader knows is the last generation of civic-minded civilians, but Gaudet has a hard time extending his material to feature length. I came to best like Bill Knight, World War II vet and, at 87, the oldest by over a decade. His widower's approach to housekeeping gives his home, a chaos of moldering collections and scavenging cats, definite visual flair, and he holds up well under vulture-like close-ups. Asked if he fears dying alone: "It's nothing to get excited about."

Check out this week's featured ad for Movies

HOOTERS

View Ad View Website

More Ads >>

Get the Events Newsletter

What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Email
to Friend

Write to
Editor

Print
Article

Nancy Chevrolet 07/17/2009 2:17:00 AM

Nate, you need to watch fewer snuff films.

Travis 07/16/2009 12:19:00 AM

I'm a big fan of The Way We Get By, from SXSW. Maybe it could be ~70 minutes, I remember it was a little long at 90. Beyond that, this review is totally confused. How would you get close enough to Mr. Knight to be taken by his situation if this was a short? The service and troop greeting aspects could be treated as such (and have been, by other filmmakers and countless news magazines). But you only get a sense of what is going on outside the airport (the solitude; the body/home/financial decay) by living with the characters in THEIR real time. Which is sloooow. The reviewer's personal discomfort for the realities of old age seems far, far removed from the slow & sappy (& successful) verite on display here.