Theme of Bodies, Rest and Motion

Theme of Bodies, Rest and Motion

This is a story about searching and trying to find home. Four people are looking for their place in life. It’s about belonging. They are at the beginning of the film living a superficial temporary existence.

We have a character Nick who is a man lost, he is looking for a purpose, a sense of belonging and direction. He is disconnected from his family and even from society, from his job, from his girlfriend. He seeking and wanting and does not know what that is but he knows he is missing something or someone.

Next we have Sid who at the beginning of the film is just the opposite of Nick. He is a body at rest. He belongs. His is happy with where he is and who he is and is not wanting. He is self-aware, comfortable with his life. He is happy just exactly where he is doing what he does and sure of his place in life. His character is unconventional. He doesn’t know to feel inferior that he is a painter, that he’s never been out of Enfield. When Carol asks him which is his career, the painting or the lawn mowing, her condescension is lost on him. He is free of want until he meets Beth.

Beth is in a sort of a lull. She too is searching but not in the way that Nick is. She is not pained by it. Beth is the one that nudges Sid into motion. Beth is living with Nick and senses his chaos but is less pained and less needy.

The film opens with everything already in transition, in motion. We first see an escalator moving up and down. People are going places and the escalator tells us that nothing is going to remain as they are. Nick works as a TV salesman but he’s been fired and it’s his last day, he lives with Beth but that soon changes, he lives in Enfield, Arizona but he plans to move tomorrow to Butte, Montana. Nothing is concrete nothing is working, not even the toaster.

The next image we see is the desert, vast, endless and un-chartered desert, again the idea of being lost, searching and of course being nowhere. Next, we see Beth at a left turn lane of an intersection, lost in thought, staring into space, she neither knows where she is nor does she know where she is heading. The light is red and honking horns awaken her and she realizes she wants to go straight and she asks the driver in the next lane to let her in and it’s Sid. He waves her in and smiles. Sid and Beth have crossed paths and will again, soon. This scene is prophetic.

The movie is set almost like a play. Everything happens with very few characters outside of the main four. The dialogues are long and almost recited in slow monotones. It’s a simplified setting and each of the four main characters represents very strong and magnified positions. The characters are almost flat and barely three dimensional. We