Desert Cathedral (2014) Online

Beautifully shot and directed, Desert Cathedral is a moving story about a seemingly average husband/father from suburbia, a man who has lost his way in life. Interesting integration of archival footage throughout makes the experience strange and captivating (yet sometimes painful) to watch, detailing his psychological breakdown through video/audio diaries. Beautiful desert as the backdrop for the story and strong lead performances by both Lee Tergesen (who carries the film) and Chaske Spencer who plays a very likable private investigator. Desert Cathedral is a bold commentary on broken values, American masculinity and suicide. This is a film that will stand the test of time - although a period film in the early 1990's, the themes are just as topical and relevant today. Looking forward to seeing more from director Travis Gutiérrez Senger in the near future.

This is clearly a hoax. And utterly implausible. So this man makes two serious attempts at killing himself, and then...just stops? He even gets stumbling drunk and doesn't attempt to kill himself again? He then makes friends with the detective guy, gets drunk again, appears to be having an okay time, then literally runs away once the jig is up like a little kid who can't have ice cream? The funniest scene is the detective chasing him all over the desert like a monty python skit. Then, the detective is all dumbfounded when he gets to the edge of the cliff, only to find that the man jumped to his death, but instead of falling straight down he appears to have sailed out 400 yards. Some leaping skills.

I knew this was fake after the sex scene. Legally, you'd have to get permission from this woman. Fine. They got permission. Then...no interviews? No pictures? Not to mention that this guy was a total weirdo who filmed everything. You're telling me the filmmakers couldn't convince her into handing over more material? Furthermore, the entire move contains...three mins? Five mins tops of "archival" footage?

The detective guy. For the life of me I could not figure out what the hell he was trying to do with his accent. Or, if that was just his accent. It sounded like he was trying to do a southern drawl. It was atrocious. Then, it dawned on me, he sounded like Mr. Garrison from South Park. Then, he keeps making the point "I can't call the cops." Ummm...yeah, actually you can. No, they wont arrest him, but they'll intervene. Furthermore, while only the audience has the knowledge of his suicide attempts, a logical person would assume that at the very least he is having a nervous breakdown and at the very worst is suicidal. All you have to do is mention the words "suicide" and the cops will show up to intervene.

I hate movies that have to rely on a gimmick (Fargo). Even the ending "based on a true story" had so many qualifiers that it could have applied to a story that my grandmother heard about her neighbor's boss's nephew's friend's sister's husband who killed himself. Bogus.

The freshly wide-released and most unconventionally presented docudrama "Desert Cathedral" seemed to offer some of my very favorite facets of film. These are in no particular order of preference: suspense, drama, a darkish theme, an enigmatic and sparingly speaking main character and the vast wide open spaces of the American west. Having seen this remarkable movie now I am here tell ya that's a "Bingo" on all counts.

I am a longtime continuous resident of the Puget Sound region and still was not familiar with the actual Seattle area events upon which "Desert Cathedral" is based. Veteran actor Lee Tergesen is simply superb as Peter Collins, a realtor who blows his big chance at grabbing the brass ring when a dream housing development project goes belly up. Unable to absorb such unexpected failure Collins becomes completely unhinged. We then watch as a man plunges headlong into the abyss of an unnerving nervous breakdown. Collins drives south and away from his job, home and family, eventually winding up in the middle of nowhere, USA. His frame of mind is fragile, his mission macabre. Collins also makes an audio and video journal of his bizarre odyssey, primarily as a means of apologizing to his wife and young daughter for the pain he knew he was inflicting upon them. These recordings are expertly interwoven into the film together with the dramatic performance footage in a stunningly seamless editing triumph on behalf of Oriana Soddu and Marc Vives. And every bit of what we see on this ominous journey is relentlessly riveting.

I had a chance to visit by phone with first-time feature film Director Travis Gutiérrez Senger, who also wrote and helped to produce "Desert Cathedral". I will be posting excerpts from our interview later this week. Senger shared with me that his follow-up to "Desert Cathedral" is already in the works. This time the environment explored will be the much more limited setting of a drug rehab clinic in what Senger describes as a "hallucinatory dark comedy/drama". That may sound like somewhat of a big bite to chew. However if this impressive debut is any sort of indication at all, it's a relatively decent bet that this talented and provocative young filmmaker is more than capable of sinking his teeth into the challenge.

The film was flawlessly acted and the characters adequately fleshed out, but the pacing was excruciatingly slow with little to no story arc. I actually like slow dramas, but this was a lot like watching paint dry.