Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine begins with a young girl alone in a field, calling for her dog. She is alone and unheard. A similar beginning greets the audience in The Place Beyond the Pines. It begins in darkness with deep inhales and exhales and the rhythmic click-shish of a switch blade. The tattooed, shirtless Luke (Ryan Gosling) is simultaneously alone, calm, and dangerous. As yet, we’ve not seen his face, only his inked, shirtless form. Like something out of an Aranofsky film, the camera follows the back of Luke’s head as he functions in reverse, emerging from his dressing room sans shirt, but slowly donning a ragged, inside-out t-shirt, and then a leather jacket as he moves toward the iron sphere in which he will quickly and adroitly weave in between other stunt motorcycle drivers as the carnival-attending crowd cheers him on, hoping for a crash but thrilled by his success.
Masked, Luke is a driver, inconsequential in his appearance, only relevant in his actions. This same trait applies to his relationship with Romina (Eva Mendes), a one-night-stand from a year prior when he was in town the first time. Upon meeting a second time at the end of a foggy evening, Romina casually asks, “Do you remember by name,” as if they are both objects interacting like molecules, nothing more.
He does, but she’s wary of telling him that he’s a father to her child.
Soon he discovers this and quits his job as a stunt driver. While a noble act, Luke’s decision pigeon holes him. He has no skills and apparently little ambition. Like the disjointed tattoo on his next, he is a “tyro,” used only for his ability to drive, not fostered toward anything else. He ambition to care for his son is admirable, but terribly misplaced. Thus, the funds he must generate will be earned in some rather awesome bank robberies.
And, this is where The Place Beyond the Pines becomes a heist film, at least for the time being, and at least for the first forty-seven minutes.
The movie’s run time is 141 minutes. Most often, I only cite duration to emphasize how crammed a narrative is or how underdeveloped a character might be, but Cianfrance meticulously divided his latest film into three equal segments, each one transitioning to the other via the introduction of a new protagonist.
Luke is the first leading man, who strives to take care of his child, but his efforts are misdirected and often sloppily undertaken. Unlike the sphere in which he works, he has few boundaries, visiting Romina’s abode that is currently owned by her current lover and her son’s default father, Kofi. His desire to be a father is apparently driven by his own father’s absence – as are his wonky actions. This lack of boundaries also compels him to rob two banks in one day.
During this heist gone predictable awry, we are introduced to the Ivy-League, lawyer turned cop, Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). The subsequent forty-seven minutes begins with a similar deep inhale and exhale – this time via a hospital ventilator – but the film centers on Avery and becomes a film about police corruption a la Serpico, Broken City, American Gangster, or the many other dozens that inhabit this genre. Legalese is tossed about, as are looks at the definition of “hero,” comparing both Avery and Luke. The former is the all-star, poster boy citizen on patrol; the latter is a criminal, whose mug shot covers the local Schenectady, New York papers.
It’s here that we realize part of Cianfrance’s film is about circuits and repetition. Luke, in his sphere, is stuck in a role. A few times, a giant Ferris wheel is his backdrop. It’s motion is a perpetual repetition. His relationship with his father also compels him to act the way he does with his own son, though Luke’s actions create a similar circumstance of absentia in his son’s life. These moments perfectly exemplify Delueuze’s theories of repetition, wherein there is a similarity that recreates a similar action.
The same can be seen as we follow Avery Cross. While he is a vehicle for the rather tried, tired, and predictable trope of cop corruption, he path – despite his protestations – lead him to his father, a man who was legally ever-present, but not the most attentive father, and so it goes and goes and goes.
The symmetry that Cianfrance creates within the film is pretty obvious and very cynical. As of right now, I’m still undecided as to whether or not this is a positive or a negative thing. The mashup of genres is intriguing, and, in a way, it’s as if Cianfrance is indicting genres for being nearly the same with minor tweaks. The Place Beyond the Pines is, overall, a film about heists, cop corruption, love, responsibility, and teenage drama. It’s three separate films, but all three contain similar tropes, plot points, and resolutions, all endemic to the other genres.
Overall, The Place Beyond the Pines is an experiment in storytelling. Yes, there are predictable progressions of events, but I don’t believe Cianfrance is trying to trick anyone. He’s as aware as we are of how these events are supposed to run. He’s not trying to throw in twists and turns. If anything, he’s stringing together storytelling styles and challenging us to continue categorizing them.
