treasure hunt
by
Douglas Messerli
Mark Christopher (screenwriter and director) Alkali, Iowa / 1995
Mark Christopher’s short film of 1995, Alkali, Iowa begins in a field of corn with the central character, Jack Gudmanson (J. D. Cerna) digging something up. It is, in fact, a remnant of the past, from the old house in which previous generations of his family once lived, and which the young man’s grandfather (Ed Seamon) inexplicably burned down in the 1960s.
Evidently, Jack has been long searching on
this part of the field when his autocratic grandfather
Why, he later asks his mother June (Mary
Beth Hurt) did his grandfather burn down the empty house where the family once
lived? Her suggestion is that it evidently attracted local young lovers and
others who used it for hideaways. He wonders whether she and his now deceased
father had hung out there at times, but doesn’t receive an answer.
Meanwhile, the continual appearance of a
strange man who almost daily drives up to the edge of their property and lays
out a picnic lunch for himself, seemingly toasting his champagne in the
direction of the working farmers, almost as if he were taunting them, clearly
angers the older man. He calls the picnicking Roger, “Blondie” because of his
platinum-dyed hair.
The grandfather interrogates his grandson
as to whether or not he has ever spoken to the intruder, to which Jack replies,
rather defensively, that he has no reason to talk to him. It’s clear that the
grandfather sees the stranger as a dangerous figure, worthy of bringing out his
shotgun to scare him off, action he takes the second time “Blondie” appears
during the course of the film.
More importantly, we observe Jack get
into his car and drive a few miles away to a grove, lined with some picnic
tables. Suddenly, we recognize that the spot is a hide-out for local gay men,
farmers mostly. In the woods around and in a local bathroom they appear to meet
up for sex. Surely Jack is a handsome regular to this bunch of rugged men,
desperate for a little companionship.
I have to say that this scene had great
significance for me. Having grown up in a more urban Iowa, I never bothered to
wonder if there might be anything like gay farmers, and if there were, that
they might have their own secret meeting places. Christopher’s short film,
accordingly, takes us into a world we might never have imagined.
The day after these events, Jack, in the
presence of his sister, digs up something near the same spot of far more
significance, a metal box. Since it’s silver, Carol claims it, but Jack, once
he has peaked inside to see the contents, will not give it up. And that afternoon,
while his grandfather is working in a far field, he enters the older man’s
bedroom to discover a strange Hawaiian record which seems totally out of place
in his grandfather’s restrictive world.
On the back of one of the photographs he also has discovered in the metal container which looks somewhat like a silver lunch box, is the written name “Jacko.” a pet name, apparently, for his father, he has never heard his mother express. The record has been signed, as a gift, to the same nickname.
In this sense, Christopher’s short film
is not a trove of answers to the riddles with which the movie presents us, but
is, rather, a series of unanswered clues to what we obliquely observe: his
grandfather’s bitterness and violence against “Blondie,” his mother’s vagueness
about her and her husband’s relationship. The two children, whose father has
apparently died early in their childhoods, are quite literally on a treasure
hunt, Carol for shiny objects, Jack for untold stories and, we gradually
perceive, evidence.
Evidence of what he is seeking, we are not
quite certain until he returns to the country male pic-up spot, where “Blondie,”
in fear of further attack, attempts to race off in his car the moment he sees the
young man. Jack, however, simply apologies about his grandfather’s actions.
“You knew my father?” he gently asks. The man shakes his head yes. “Was he, was
he like us?” Jack almost stutters out the question the bits of information have
led him to. “Yes,” says “Blondie” before getting into his car to drive off.
To my knowledge there is no Alkali, Iowa.
And it is still difficult for me to comprehend that some few of my large family
of Iowa farmers might have been gay and found such isolated spots as portrayed
in this film, to satisfy their desires. In a sense, Alkali, Iowa is
related to movies such as Monte Patterson’s 2010 movie “Caught,” wherein small
town Ohio gay men gather in a bathroom facility in a rural public park nearby,
tracked by police on hidden cameras. Both films take us to territories we might
never have expected, in our close-minded attitudes toward to LGBTQ activity, to
find homosexuals.
This film demonstrates, in a sense, the truth
of a litmus test: alkali is a chemical compound that neutralizes or effervesces
with acids, turning litmus paper blue. Forgetting any political associations,
it is interesting to recall that gays were often described in some societies,
and still are in Russia, as “blues.” Here, their actions truly counteract or
even animate the narrow homophobic anger of those, like Jack’s grandfather, who
live amongst them.
If Jack’s life may be forever closeted on
the farm he works, he is, perhaps like his father, open to others in the local
community to more ebullient forms of love.
Los Angeles, November 14, 2020
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog and World Cinema Review (November
2020).
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