{image1} If you stripped a movie of special effects, artistic cinematography, trained actors and premeditated dialogue, you would essentially be left with Jenni Olson's experimental documentary, "The Joy of Life."
Utilizing little more than a single narrator and shots of San Francisco cityscapes, Olson proves her bare-bones style effective as she layers an hour's worth of faceless monologue over still camera images in this honest take on life and death.
Narrator Harriet "Harry" Dodge ("By Hook or Crook") uses the film's first half -- the "life" half -- as a poetic confessional of lesbian heartbreak and reflection. Through her tales of lustful hope and harsh rejection we see into a world of a woman struggling with gender identity, sexual frustration and bouts of depression without ever seeing Dodge herself.
Her voiceover -- slow, monotone and dotted with dry wit and wisdom -- nods to the spoken word style of the beat poets, and it is with the inclusion of Jack Kerouac's ode, "O Frisco, with end-of-land sadness," that the film veers toward another direction.
After an interlude by San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the film's second half -- the "death" half -- takes a more sociological look at the city, specifically the status of its Golden Gate Bridge as the world's number one suicide landmark.
Olson's close friend Mark Finch, who, until his death in 1995 was the artistic director of the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, was one of 1,300 people who have committed suicide by jumping off the bridge since it opened in 1937.
Adding personal homage to a public and on-going debate over how to curb the bridge's suicide draw, the film takes a political stand against the Bridge District Board of Directors who, for decades, have refused to construct a preventative barrier as it would abate tourists' view of the Bay.
Emotionally touching as it is historically informative, "The Joy of Life" won Best Outstanding Artistic Achievement at Outfest 2005 and Best U.S. Narrative Screenplay at the 2005 Newfest.
"The Joy of Life" screens as part of the LGBT Film/Video Festival, Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. at UWM's Union Theatre, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd. Admission is $7 for the general public and $5 for students, seniors and campus community.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
