Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

August 10:

"Worse than the Twilight Zone"

Jonas Mekas early in this document of his life compares himself to Ulysses, one form of the Roman name of Odysseus, a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey who, returning from that odyssey after ten years, despite originally just trying to returning home from the Trojan War, felt weary in his homecoming. Weary in his homecoming in a new world to him, we begin in  1949, a week into Jonas Mekas and his brother emigrating to the United States, having bought a Bolex camera between them which we see the footage from, in this film composed together in 1976 decades later. A displaced person in New York City, this Lithuanian migrant's experience is steeped in melancholia, but as he would find happiness in his new life, and return to Lithuania briefly one day in the future, so too does the world he entered feel brimming with fascinating. This preserves that world he entered like amber on film, even the nudie joints and downtown cinemas selling sex, from which after his sense of being lost he would eventually find himself.

Mekas admits early on he is sentimental, rather than record abstract images, and as a film that view is taken as it goes from his new life in 1949 to the sixties, Lost, Lost, Lost now I come to it appreciating his work rewarding as a journey over three hours felt fully. It does not hide the fact he was displaced. Fellow Lithuanians meet up at the House of Lape, as seen, and we see football (soccer) games, picnics, traditional folk dances, and even a Lithuanian wedding in Brooklyn. Openly viewing himself and others like him lost in stasis, to eventually diminish in number, Mekas  even shows that their nationality was to question even as exiles, as he briefly covers the conflict of Lithuanian communists versus Lithuanian nationalists, as their country became a Soviet nation in the future Iron Curtain, footage recorded by him even showing protesters with signs.

This is the kind of source which can now compel me, as it is an epic documentation of one man's past as a diary, one of many Mekas would make as he kept recording his life for decades even after this production. Eventually this film reaches the end of its first and second parts (reels 1 and 2), with this chapter of him and his fellow migrants in the United States, with him reconsidering himself beyond an exile, by 1953, to become a Lithuanian needing to rebuild himself. He did, and where Lost, Lost, Lost grows is that in the little details of the life seen, from leaving Brooklyn to Manhattan, even going briefly to New Jersey for shooting grounds, he amplified the life that he experienced and reconsiders it with greater meaning we all learn from.

And the film, based around six reels, does become profound. Fiction and reality both have their places to tell meaningful narratives, full of introspection, but entirely based on reality, this accomplishes this greatly, where even when ending up in Los Angeles, living on "miserable sandwiches and coffee", you see many profound moments Mekas was rewarded with in his perseverance. Only one segment, an extensive one on "Rabbit Shit Haikus", feels broad and trying a little to the point of pretention ("the road, the road, the road...."), even if the name comes from the dark humoured idea that, if life is a journey, he imagines someone reaching the end of the road only to find rabbit droppings and having to turn back round, having to explain what they find to the people back at the start. That segment feels contrived when everything else is intimate and felt fully, meaningful with just the littlest of moments such as a montage of a woman chewing bubblegum, and blowing bubbles, in a variety of different places strung together. His eventual future as a huge figure for avant-garde cinema in his new homeland was documented by himself without ego, filming the world for these filmmakers as it was, such as footage of Robert Frank shooting The Sins of Jesus (1962) at a chicken farm. Mekas also found himself in places of history of the time beyond cinema too, at the right time and right places recording in the middle of an anti-nuke protest, a large scale one that lasts into the night with Mekas front row (literally in the midst of) with his camera.  

It is difficult for me to review a film which is entirely of these images and visuals, which you can argue for all cinema, which should be seen and then discussed. But here especially, Lost, Lost, Lost is a profound work that should be seen, a piece which is compelling as an extensive home recorded narrative. We see over time Mekas find himself, this documentary in itself with him looking back at the time with this in mind, questioning what it meant to be a migrant living in another country and eventually lead to become the man he became, famous for this when Lost, Lost, Lost was compiled and released. It is stepped in melancholy throughout, but as time has passed from watching the film, this mood has seeped away and I look back at this film as a celebration. He crossed paths with fascinating figures, between a Tiny Tim cameo in reel 6, or the sight of an older Salvador Dali conversing with a group over optical illusions in another scene. Mekas even if his journey could end just finding rabbit droppings must have realised the distance was still worth it just for the walking he did.

Eventually a viewer will see this in the early stages of who Mekas became, travelling with film prints of Flaming Creatures (1963) and Blonde Cobra (1963) for screenings only to be forced to sleep outside in the cold, with friends, in Vermont. He is able however in the footage to appreciate the moment between them, becoming a victory for a man who, as documented in his own film Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), originally fled his home land due to Nazi invasion and even ending up a prisoner to them briefly. He jokes over this footage of he and the figures in this footage having been "the monks of cinema", aptly with Mekas onscreen waving his camera around with monk chanting on the soundtrack, all justified knowing his reputation in promoting others' work avant-garde cinema let alone his own work being profound for decades to come. After nearly three hours of Mekas trying to find himself as an exile, to joke like this in the final stages of the archive material feels like he found himself, Lost, Lost, Lost for us the viewers a celebration of finding oneself, certainly a film is dire need of greater recognition as a gem of the art form.