Like a melancholy song on a lonely desert road

I've taken a lot of road trips in my life. I really enjoy long, solo trips with nothing but soda and music to keep me company.

Maybe I just get off on the obvious metaphor of it all, but I find it cleansing and therapeutic to head out on the highway when there's a lot on my mind. There were times I was filled with sadness, and times I felt relieved, scared, and excited to shed old skin and set my compass for the open road.

There are moments during these road trips when the world in front of you glitters on the windshield like a holographic poem. Moments when the sun dips just below a majestic mountain while a sad song on the radio fills you with regret or longing mixed with a grin from someplace unknown.

This is the best way to describe First Snow, a slow moving projection shimmering with dusk lit mountain tops and dark, moonlit roads.

Guy Pearce (Memento, The Proposition, L.A. Confidential) leads the film as Jimmy, an ambitious flooring salesman who dreams of more. When a car breakdown strands him for a couple of hours in the middle of the desert with nothing but a bar and a few road side vendors to entertain him, he winds up stepping into a "psychic's" trailer for some quick fun. What starts as entertainment and *beep* soon turns odd when the psychic gets spooked by what he sees and tells Jimmy to go. The film's plot is solidified when he tells Jimmy that his life will end at the first snow.

What follows is Jimmy trying to make sense of the mystery in front of him; Of his progression of grief which I think was heavily influenced by the famous five steps of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. But for me, the plot is secondary to the daydream like feel of the film, reinforced by Cliff Martinez's haunting score. Much like Martinez's soundtrack to the film Solaris, the music floats on a cloud of low pulses that lightly thread the film as it slowly moves forward.

This is a film for people who can bypass the drive-thu; People who can appreciate a slow moving story about fate and redemption that doesn't include sex, robots or violent explosions. This is a film about:

"Acceptance for the things we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Yours in Service,
Robert Plastorm