The sequel “The Falls: Testament of Love” by Jon Garcia, is
long (122 minutes) and slow moving, but it is much more powerful than its
predecessor. Sometimes it will take time
to present a whole moral universe. This
film needs it.
We find Chris (Benjamin Farmer) and RJ (Nick Ferrucci) five
years later (with no visible physical changes), after the two had become
intimate as they fell in love when they toured together proselytizing on their
quasi-mandatory Mormon missionary assignment.
Chris has “confessed”, gone through “reparative therapy”, and been
welcomed back into the church, and finally gotten married (wife played by
Hannah Barefoot) in a temple ceremony sealing “eternal marriage”, and had a
daughter, in Salt Lake City, near the center of the Mormon Universe. He works as a huckster for a pharmaceutical
company and lives palatially, with a grand piano in the house. RJ has left the LDS Church, although he
privately practices the prayers, found a lover, and started working as a
freelance writer and web media producer in Seattle. His own behavioral code has weakened; we even
see him light a first cigarette (boo!)
Both men attend a funeral of an elderly man they had vi sited
on the mission and meet. RJ can’t resist
the urge to make an 800 mile trip to Salt Lake and show up at Chris’s house.
For a while, we see Chris’s straight life and get a sense of
what religious morality is all about. With RJ having just shown up at Chris’s house,
the baby cries, the mother is attentive, and then Chris is patronizing of
her. He has indeed subjugated his entire
psyche, his innermost being and creative impulse, to meeting the demands of his
community to raise children through the family, and to love others in the
family, by first becoming totally sexually dedicated to one woman. The film communicates the religious idea that
if well-off men are required to make this kind of emotional sacrifice, the
world becomes a safer, fairer and more stable place for everyone, even if some
people are economically “richer” than others.
Chris resists RJ’s desire for even conversation at first,
but rather suddenly caves in. Essentially, at a motel, they reignite their
old passions (chests seem to matter).
Chris has to realize who he is as does, particularly, his father. The
family faces the unthinkable prospect of divorce and existential challenge to
the teachings of the church.
The official site is
here and the DVD was released Dec. 11. I reviewed a free Vimeo private screener from
Breaking Glass Pictures.
The screener appears to have been shot HD digital video,
2.35:1. Almost all of the activity is
indoors; the film seems a bit like a stage play, and powerful. The previous film was reviewed Feb. 18, 2013.
Wikipedia attribution link for Salt Lake Temple
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