The source material for “Mare’s Nest” could’ve been considered antithetical to a cinematic adaptation when the original point of Don DeLillo’s one-act play “The Word for Snow” was to conjure a world ravaged by climate change that could only be described with words to future generations, complicated by the fact that survivors didn’t necessarily speak the same language and would need to agree upon some foundational text to preserve history. While you can instantly understand the appeal to Ben Rivers, who has long seen beauty in decay as he’s traveled the world in search of the impressions humans leave on the earth and vice versa, it also seems potentially counterintuitive when the filmmaker would remove any personal guesses as to what the post-apocalyptic present might look like. (In stage productions, some of this was abated with photographs of abandoned lots by Richard Prince.) Still, there’s plenty of imagination on display in the endearing travelogue that follows a young girl named Moon (Moon Guo Barker) to find her footing amidst a wasteland.
While Rivers remains apt to ruminative contemplation of landscapes as the people that inhabit them, “Mare’s Nest” may be his most accessible to date with its constant curiosity about what a land ruled over by children would look like. When DeLillo didn’t identify how old the characters in his story and contained it to a scene that becomes the centerpiece of Rivers’ film as Moon goes to visit a teacher who requires a translator to discuss the value of language moving forward, the implications of age become fascinating when Moon and all those she comes in contact with have retained wisdom from the past, but starting anew as if they were physically reborn when the world changed so dramatically. The apocalypse are predicted by some arrives with somewhat of a whimper when occurring off-screen in the form of a mild car crash with the camera fixed on a turtle that has soldiered on and quickly picked up by Moon after she emerges from the damaged vehicle and thinks nothing of leaving it behind to take off on foot.
Personal survival is never a concern in “Mare’s Nest” when Moon is never in physical danger, but there are existential questions abound as a seemingly carefree trek across the coastline brings about confrontations with what will retain the power to persist from language to traditional activities as she comes into contact with others. Such deep-thinking adolescents are inherently amusing, having a bit of the same charm as the preternaturally poised kids that ran around in gangster costumes in “Bugsy Malone,” but the film respects the serious consequences of what has value to them as they rebuild civilization, starting with the rediscovery of fire and in a particularly lovely touch for cinephiles, finding a novel way to project film onto a screen when electricity is no longer around.
The fact that Moon never feels as if she’s holding the weight of the world on her shoulders in being part of the effort to keep it alive is a bit of a double-edged sword when the stakes don’t ever appear to be all that high, but there’s a refreshing quality to seeing end times as more of a breezy adventure, particularly when Rivers films in such wondrous environments such as the Lithica labyrinth in Menorca, Spain. As it becomes apparent that important as it may be to hold onto certain things, letting go of prescribed ways of thinking are equally necessary to carry on and Rivers’ own unconventional approach to world building holds inspiration in all kinds of ways.
“Mare’s Nest” will screen again at the Locarno Film Festival on August 10th at 6 pm at L’altra Sala and August 11th at 9 pm at La Sala.