Jeffrey Overstreet has already talked about this film at Filmwell. But it is screening at the St. Louis International Film Festival this year, and deserves as much attention as it can get.
There are a few reasons why the minimalism of Lake Tahoe stands out among the large annual festival crop of similarly pared down films. The first is that Eimbcke’s approach to filmmaking seems organically related to his set, the washed out right angles and open spaces of this dead-pan Yucatan town. When Juan crashes his car and begins the Quixotic task of getting it fixed, the camera simply follows the stark lines of his transition between home and shop and car. The film moves with all the fluidity of a slide show.
A second reason is that much of Lake Tahoe involves watching Juan becoming embroiled in the domestic routines of those he encounters. They have to eat breakfast with their dog first. They have to look for the right part. They have to wait in doorways for a Bruce Lee obsessed mechanic to show up. Their baby just fell asleep. These aren’t the most exciting activities, and Eimbcke doesn’t feel the need to make them seem more than what they are.
And a third reason is that Lake Tahoe is a film that works in cycles. The second time through its minimal material, we begin to see everything that wasn’t as apparent the first half of the film. Our suspicion that there is a lot to this film is confirmed, and subtle realizations begin to unravel that tap into the collective sense of loss Juan’s small family is dealing with in different ways. Little happens, but as these gestures continue to cycle, they start to come into focus.
We never actually see the events that cause the film: the death of Juan’s father and then Juan’s fender bender. The former event predates the film, and the latter happens while the screen is blacked out. It is an odd experience, but one that keeps happening throughout the film with increasing frequency. It happens when music is playing, when people are finishing a thought, or in a grand celebration of film sound – something with which Lake Tahoe is very preoccupied – when we get to hear an entire scene of Enter the Dragon in a movie theater. Bruce Lee’s grunts, the squish of flesh and snap of bone, heavy breathing. There is a visceral charge to this blackout that becomes a signifier of what Juan has been feeling all along, of the anger and despair that is masked by the passivity he shares with Eimbcke’s direction.
We follow the blackouts through various sounds and noises until the end of the film, which tracks its titular McGuffin to its sad conclusion. Lake Tahoe is a wonderfully centrifugal elegy.
(DVDs are available from Film Movement.)