For some reason I wanna share the quirky context wherein this movie came up for me, I thought to watch again, but upon viewing, I'm doubtful I'd seen it, but maybe.
I've been contemplating this drive to the coast, from Portland, Oregon, and if you know your geography you know that's a one to two hour drive at least, not some trivial jaunt.
And yet there's a movie out there somewhere, that I saw long ago, wherein it looks like Portlandia high schoolers get off school at like at 3 PM, and are all at the beach in their cars, hanging out, but minutes later, like one could drive to the coast routinely just to socialize. I wanted to find that movie.
We (I had help from Mercado Group) narrowed it down to a Gus Van Sant film. He'd directed films around Portland a lot.
I now think the scenes I remember are in Elephant, and I plan to watch that next, if for no other reason than to watch one of our Wanderers, Joe Cronin, play the chemistry teacher in that film. It's been decades since I saw it (or Joe). and I'm looking forward to rewatching it.
My Private Idaho is about young male prostitutes or escorts or street kids or whatever you wanna call 'em. They bounce around as a subculture, mainly between Seattle and Portland.
Our protagonist, played by River Phoenix, would like to see his mom again and Keanu Reeves, his friend and protector, accompanies the main character (who has narcolepsy, and so really needs protection) all the way to Rome, Italy on this quest to find his mom, based on various clues. No dice (the mom is long gone, back to the Americas), although Reeves lucks out in finding the girl, which is gut-wrenching to Phoenix, who has a crush on him, feels a bond.
As a denizen of both Portland and Rome, I can attest to the movie's authenticity in terms of the Rome scene near the Colosseum, a known spot for outdoor recreational sex under the cover of darkness. I even knew that as a kid, wandering through there by day sometimes, because of all the condoms lying around.
I'd wandered all over that city, a middle-school-aged flaneur. I was never accosted, mugged, nor otherwise messed with. My parents were persuaded by the their friends that Rome is safe for kids like me (young boys, roaming alone), and in retrospect it was. Later in life, on some visit, a gay guy got me drunk, encouraging me to talk about Wittgenstein in broken Italian, but he wasn't being predatory, just having fun with another weirdo.
As for Portland, this city is known for a high number of strip clubs per capita, as well as microbreweries. Sex workers, practicing and retired, abound in Portland (as in almost any big city), a few of whom I know personally, as friends or perhaps collaborators. I worked for Sisters of the Road as a computer guy (I'd call them my client) back in the day. Our little road show (me the roadie) worked with women's' shelters some, in a fundraising capacity.
The movie is highly stylized. Sex scenes are presented as stills flashing by, as if we're flipping through a an adults only magazine. A lot of the dialog, around that guy "Bob" especially, sounds Shakespearean or maybe Dickensian, in the sense of stilted, formalized, ritualistic.
The "pack animal" pattern of young boys around an adult male leader is well played, especially at Bob's "funeral", where their unsupervised antics (hooting and hollering) are contrasted with a parallel service happening a few gravesites away, more demur, more high society.
The high society funeral was for Reeves' character's dad. Even though street roots Bob had considered Keanu an heir apparent, like a son, Reeves had rejoined his social class and left the pack.
Reeves had been born into wealth and, although estranged from his dad because of his promiscuous lifestyle, he'd since met his future queen in that Italian farmhouse, while accompanying Phoenix on his quest. Returning with a queen won him a place in heteronormative society, thereby securing his inheritance.
Phoenix, on the other hand, was born into poverty, in Idaho, without any prospect of an inheritance. As a loner, now without Reeves, and with narcolepsy, his prospects remain relatively dim. Fade out, the end.
Addendum: this was a two DVD Criterion Collection edition, so after writing the above I was able to take in lots of additional data, including listening to Gus Van Sant being interviewed (like on a podcast). All very informative. I enjoy taking in data from these director types and usually do watch these extra features, when available.
