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Particles of Truth review
:. Director: Jennifer Elster
:. Starring: Jennifer Elster, Gale Harold
:. Running Time: 1:41
:. Year: 2003
:. Country: USA
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With Particles of Truth, Jennifer Elster has crafted a compelling and vivid story about insecurity, art, addiction, pride and the potential for love in New York City.
Lilli Black, played by Elster, is an intense artist who must battle inner and outer demons. Like the TV series 24 (though the film covers 48 hours), the action mounts with every hour. Lilli must face her ravaged father's impending death and her roommate's violently psychotic boyfriend while combating her own insecurity before an upcoming show at a gallery. In the middle of all of this she meets Morrison (Gale Howard), a writer who travels in the safety and sanctity of his car to avoid germs. We also meet their parents. Hers are drug addicts while his live in total denial of both his promise as a writer and of his disease. To have such antipodal characters cranks up the tension yet no one is spared from some sort of living hell.
Flashbacks intertwine with reality into a sinewy rope that is threadbare in certain places. Lilli sees her unique childhood throughout New York City, the city that is both the key to her future as well as her personal graveyard of haunting tragedy. The shots are poetic, well-studied, revealing the acumen of an artist's eye. The paintings Elster commissioned to represent her character's work are haunting and fit Lilli's persona like a glove. As in Requiem for a Dream, Particles of Truth possesses a dreamlike quality while firmly rooted in grim reality. In one surreal scene she sees her parents getting high in a bathtub on the sidewalk. In another her father, on his deathbed, appears Christlike, a bearded man shrouded in white beneath a cross.
Performances are intense. Elster's character possesses a ballsy strength which provides effective counterpoint to Harold's reserved but just-on-the-brink Morrison. His character is as obsessive as Christian Bale's character in American Psycho (their bathrooms are eerily similar). However, Harold doesn't let his character to be mocked, and anyone who would be horrified and humiliated if some strange little habit were made public can sympathize with his quirks. She's ultimately a survivor flooded with emotion, somewhat filthy, very guarded. While scrounging around for inspiration she runs into the walls of her subconscience. In one scene she is attacked and almost brutally raped. When she then sees Morrison, the strength of the scene lies in the fact that she doesn't need the audience's pity to maintain her momentum. While the dialogue is awkward at times, it does reflect how people talk to each other and the naturalness of the characters ultimately intervenes.
Movies about art and artists are no easy feat. Elster tackles the subject with an aesthetic that is not over-stylized or slick in a music video way. Particles of Truth is a visceral film that also manages to avoid pretentiousness.
Anji Milanovic
 Movie Reviews: American Films
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