Until 1 June, Palace Cinemas is hosting Essential Independents: American Cinema, Now — a film festival celebrating unique, independent American cinema. Collectively, it highlights how the creative versatility of the medium can transcend typically superficial, big-budgeted Hollywood films.
This is true of the opening film — Oren Moverman's Time Out Of Mind, which sees a man (Richard Gere) dealing with the harsh reality of homelessness in New York. It encapsulates the power of independent cinema, richly portraying a character's story through this ever-prevalent issue.
Moverman's approach harkens back to 1970s filmmaking, using high inference to capture an in-depth and eerily accurate exploration into the complexity of the human experience within homelessness. The lack of non-diegetic sounds adds to the reality, while Bobby Bukowski's superb cinematography creates a sense of displacement akin to the protagonist's marginalised alienation.
Having Richard Gere in the main role is momentarily distracting and a seemingly odd choice due to his typecast career and limited range, but astonishingly he is absolutely mesmerising. Gere manages to create a truly real, understated and ultimately moving performance. While there are plenty of familiar faces that pop up to add to its quality, overall the film sits on possibly the best performance of Richard Gere's career.
Time Out Of Mind is didactic and affecting independent cinema that must be seen.
