-Maria: Did you mean it? Would you marry me?
Matthew: Yes.
Maria: Why?
Matthew: Because I want to.
Maria: Not because you love me or anything like that, huh?
Matthew: I respect and admire you.
Maria: Isn't that love?
Matthew: No, that's respect and admiration. I think that's better than love.
Maria: How?
Matthew: When people are in love they do all sorts of crazy things. They get jealous, they lie, they cheat. They kill themselves. They kill each other.
Maria: It doesn't have to be that way.
Matthew: Maybe.
Maria: You'd be the father of a child you know isn't yours.
Matthew: Kids are kids, what does it matter?
Maria: Do you trust me?
Matthew: Do you trust me first?
Maria: I trust you.
Matthew: You sure?
Maria: Yes.
Matthew: Then marry me.
Maria: I'll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equals love.
Matthew: OK. They equal love.
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Hal Hartley has made some pretty great films and I love all of them, even the more 'experimental' shorts. But this film is one of his best. Released in 1990, 'Trust' was his second feature, made quickly after the relative success of 'The Unbelievable Truth' the year before. The film works largely because of a fairly stylized but utterly flawless script (as witnessed above) and the sheer chemistry and poetry between Maria (the late Adrienne Shelly) and Matthew (Martin Donovan). Not a word is wasted between characters and where words are redundant, pauses are required here, the camera tells us what we need to know. The skilled use of images, music and words are as natural as breathing for Hartley, he just makes it seem so effortless. Themes occur and repeat in his work, as do the names of the actors he works with. Family dysfunction, suburban alienation, simmering rebellion, strangers bonding in the most awkward and bizarre of circumstances. For in Maria, Matthew can see an anchor to some kind of reality, a potential route to escape his demons, both inner (he is literally a hand grenade of anti-emotion) and external (his controlling, abusive father) whilst in Matthew, Maria can see someone she can learn from, someone who will respect and admire her... and trust will be mutual, perhaps. The music score, by Phil Reed alongside Hal Hartley himself, is also important to making this film work, giving space and movement to the parts where words don't seem to matter. Likewise, in cinematographer Michael Spiller (a long-term collaborator with Hartley) each frame is captured to look like a 50s picture postcard, a moment in time preserved before the actors enter the scene of their angst-filled crimes. This film matters because you want to believe, in the face of everything saying otherwise, that there is a happy-ever-after for Maria and Matthew. Though arrested and abandoned, you want to believe they make it. They have respect, admiration and trust, and that's as close to love as you can sometimes get, even though we all know - contrary to what Matthew agrees to - that it does not equal love. Or does it?
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Hal Hartley & Justin Kawashima - 'Trust' (end credits) MP3 (3.00)
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Trust / Buy / Possible Films
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2 comments:
i've been wanting to se this again since long ago. it's a cracker. i'm off down the shop today.
thanks for reminding me
x
My favorite movie of the 1990s, bar none. I actually came across this site because I had thought the "family is like a gun" line had come from Philip Larkin, it's that brilliant and brutally vivid an aperçu.
I have the Australian R4 DVD, which is pretty great.
The last shot of Adrienne Shelley between the stoplights defiant against the sky is like a painting.
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