Idaho
Starring River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves Reviewed by Derek Colbert One of these days there will be a film about gay relationships that gives me hope. But one of these days there will be the start of the end of the system that causes Until that oppression. perhaps only right that films Idaho' tell the truth. In that sense it is a film which is a statement about the alienation that people and particularly gay people live under in capitalist society The critical point though is whether this statement includes any way out. Any way out apart from falling asteep... with narcolepsy who falls as. leep on his ageing male clientele is quite an amusing scenario. It really pisses them off. But it also seems to piss off River Phoenix (Mike) as well and he has to be continually rescued by his 'best friend' Keanu Reeves (Scott), who is about to inherit a fortune from his father.
Mike and Scott live in an underground world run by a father Igure with whom the young men identify. This sur rogate • father (Bob) is the axis Portland seems to operate.
At the end of the film Scott of his dead father, while across the field his former nends mourn the death of their own private father in a pagan-like ritual which ends n a collective outburst of anger and celebration Despite the love Mike felt for Scott, his confidant has now married and become respectable and mourns the man he never loved. He can only watch the people who love him from a distance Yet neither world, the lowlife or the high life offer any answers. The honesty of the former warms you to it in the sense that the people seem to care about each other. But at the same time, the rent boy circuit of Portland is as moribund of love as the highfinance capitalists burying their dead.
Mike ends the film by falling asleep where ne car dream of the world he wants da for changing the world he doos live in It reeks of the 'life's a bitch and then you die' syndrome. It sees people as the passive recipients of all the world has got to offer and as the selfish grabbers of all they can get When Scott rejects Mike and Bob, he is only acting according to the way in which the world works.
Just because Scott only han sex with men for money, it means that he has to get married. In one of the most moving scenes, you see Mike crying while he hears his making love with his future wife. Mike (River Phoenix) and Scott (Keanu Reeves)
But as in so many films, the truly gay character is a poor unfortunate soul who suffers not only from sleeping fits, but also unrequited love. Well we all suffer from the latter at some time, but it would be nice to see a film where some thing other than this happens. Where Mike and Scott mi it, or where Mike's fucked-up psyche is not seen as the result of a broken home (there is always a reason why people are (particularly Mike). The film may paint a realistic picture of how life can hurt and we may identify with that.
But there is no idea of how we can fight against this situation. The idea that by joining together against the real enemy we will eventually succeed. Scott spurns his gay friend and joins the ranks of the bourgeoisie and 'My Own Private Idaho' is yet another film that says that there is nothing you can do about it.