| I am sitting, microphone in hand, in the crisp October air out on Stephen Avenue Mall, so that filmmaker Peter Mettler can smoke a cigarette as we drink coffee and discuss his latest film, Gambling, Gods and LSD.
It’s the morning after his film has screened at the 2002 Calgary International Film Festival, and I’m as transfixed by Mettler himself as I was the night before by his contemplative three-hour documentary on humanity’s pursuit of transcendence. As the gaunt, soft-spoken filmmaker offers me candid, revelatory answers to my questions about his life’s work, seven years of which have been dedicated to this film, I am thinking that this is without a doubt one of the two or three best interviews I’ve ever conducted.
Too bad it was lost. Gone. Vanished. Well, not vanished because it was never there to begin with. The recording device had failed completely. Like I’d been talking with a ghost.
A lesson to take better notes? Perhaps. But even at the time, I thought it was better that I hadn’t, in some respect. For one thing, the interview has been mythologized in my mind, and for another it allows me this opportunity to give you my own passionate response to Mettler’s métier rather than relying on his interpretations and intentions.
Gambling, Gods and LSD is a confounding film for many viewers who find it either too long, too slow or both. The night I saw it presented at the festival, many people gave up on it at various junctures, some of them even walking out in the last few minutes. But for those who stayed for the extra hour of questions and answers with the director, there was clearly a deeper appreciation of the work.
Primarily, Mettler asks us to consider the similarities between different paths that all lead in the same direction if not to exactly the same place. As the film’s title suggests, it looks at the pursuit of ecstasy through narcotics, gaming, faith, or, in Mettler’s case, filmmaking. Incorporating interviews with Canadian evangelists, Swiss junkies, Vegas high-rollers and even the inventor of LSD, Albert Hoffman, the film takes us on a cinematic journey across the world and into the centre of our minds. Or, actually, right out of our minds, as watching the film – being enraptured by its rhythm, beauty and score by experimental musicians including Fred Frith, Jim O’Rourke and others – is akin to an ecstatic experience in its own right.
I have to admit that the idea of seeing Gambling, Gods and LSD on DVD is complete anathema to me after seeing it in the cinema. First, no television set, no matter how large, can possibly do justice to Mettler’s inspired cinematographic compositions. Moreover, it is very difficult to be entranced by the small screen in one’s home, with so many distractions all around. This is a film that demands nothing less than complete engagement, even as its pace allows a great deal of time to ponder the big ideas that it presents.
The other problem with this DVD is that it doesn’t make ample use of the format. Given that Mettler’s favourite cut of the film is 73 hours, some of that supplementary footage might have found its way on to the disc. Mettler had also told me some ideas he’d had about presenting more of the footage in different gallery settings, where he would be able to set up separate rooms for each segment of the film – something similar might have been attempted with the DVD, but it seems that the folks at Alliance Atlantis didn’t deem it necessary.
As it stands, Gambling, Gods and LSD cries out for the Criterion Collection special edition, but until then, this will be better than no ecstasy at all. |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.