Quiet City (2007)

 
 
Quiet City
directed by Aaron Katz
written by Erin Fisher, Aaron Katz, and Cris Lankenau

Benten Films
2007

 
 
Quiet City is another early mumblecore film, about young people not long out of college, struggling to find their way, and looking for an authentic emotional connection. This one is almost like a fable, a serendipitous encounter between two lonely people, who spend time together, and surprise themselves by developing a genuine bond with a stranger. Perhaps it's a bit like The Breakfast Club, or Before Sunrise in that respect.

 

Jamie flies to New York and takes the subway to Brooklyn to meet a friend. The early shots are saturated with the orange of sunset and the tunnel lights. Her friend isn't there, and can't be reached by phone. Jamie asks directions from the only person around, Charlie, who first walks her to the diner that was supposed to be her meeting spot, then waits with her. Then, when it's clear her friend isn't coming, he invites her to come stay on his couch, and she accepts.

 

In Charlie's apartment they talk, have a drink, play a duet on a small keyboard. Jamie cuts his hair, then falls asleep in his bed while he's showering. Charlie sleeps on the couch. The trust and intimacy of this part is breathtaking. Both of them are taking a terrible risk, and both are rewarded for it.

I don't think it's an accident that everyone in this film is White. Jamie and Charlie are both vulnerable and naive, but also safe. They're two people who could easily hurt each other, but don't, who create a little world for themselves, fragile as a soap bubble, where the dangers out in the real world don't even exist as ideas, as possibilities. I don't know if I've seen people of color being depicted in a film being at once so innocent, and so secure that their innocence is rewarded instead of punished.

 

The next day, Charlie and Jamie try to visit her friend, who isn't home, then break in using the fire escape. (Can you imagine!?) They look around, but find no clues. They go play in the park. They visit a friend of Charlie's, then go to the gallery opening of another of Jamie's friends. They go to the after-party together, and learn more about each other, by seeing each other interact with someone else, by asking their friends about each other. Both are alone, both lonely, neither fully fits in with these friends, or feels at home where they live. Each maybe already knows the other better than anyone else does.

 

It seem notable that no one in this film has a smartphone. Of course, it's because they don't exist yet. Jamie is initially preoccupied trying to call her friend, but once she and Charlie are alone together, they have no distractions except the ones they make. No television, no internet. They each get the full force of the other's attention for hours and hours. It's a recipe to cultivate connection, and something that seems hardly possible anymore (I say, by typing these words into an app on my smartphone...)

 

After the after-party, the two ride the subway back to the airport together so Jamie can fly home. The scene of intimacy that ends the film isn't sex, isn't even a kiss - it's Jamie falling asleep resting her head on his shoulder, and Charlie falling asleep resting his head on hers. The final shot is the plane taking off in the orange of another sunrise. We don't know what either will do next, but we can hope their connection will somehow last.
 
 
Originally watched March 2023.