That idiot Godard said film was truth 24 times a second. Of course he was wrong (in Europe, it's 25 frames-per-second.). But film is *facts* 24 times a second. Van Sant deals in facts. This is a simple story-two guys drive out into the desert to look at 'the thing', halfway there they decide to skip it, and then they become hopelessly, irretrievably lost. Death can be a slow, agonizing thing. Without so much as a whisper of dialogue about it, the two face death in all its horror. They're just two guys-the watch TV, they play video games. But gradually, subtly, everything is sucked out of them. How do you live when there's nothing to live for? This is the question van Sant asks, and leaves the answers unsaid.
