Gasoline Rainbow

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Five kids head for the coast in an old van in Gasoline Rainbow, the Ross brothers’ first feature since Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, their intensely evocative film about the last day in the life of a Las Vegas dive bar.

Bloody Nose looked like a documentary but there were suggestions at the edges that everything wasn’t quite as it was being portrayed. Those doubts become a bit more concrete in Gasoline Rainbow, which is what would be called “scripted reality” if it were TV, and if it were more scripted.

It’s loose, incredibly so, looks like a documentary and feels like a documentary, with the sort of free, sometimes hesitant performances you get when people who are not used to it have a camera shoved in their faces and are told to act natural.

Maybe think of the van as the Mystery Machine and the gang as Scooby and co. Tony, Micah, Nichole, Nathaly and Makai are all from a place called Wiley, in Oregon, and to mark their last summer before heading off into the world of work or more education, they set off on a road trip to the coast, having minor adventures on the way, meeting people, hanging out, going to parties, smoking weed, drinking beer, and so on.

With the optimism of youth, when an opportunity presents itself they say yes. So in the middle of one night early in their trip they happen upon a guy on his own in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of beers in his hand. They pull over. Where you headed, dude, kind of thing. To chug beers with my homies, he says, and off they go with him, locking the van up by the side of the road, not sure what they’re letting themselves in for. It turns out to be a party of sorts, with a roaring fire out under the stars. They have fun.

The guys on the road in the van
Partying in the van


This is pretty much the template for the whole movie. Meet some random or randoms, talk about music and tattoos and parties and weed, agree to whatever the newbie suggests and wind up doing things not done before – jumping onto trains like hobos, hitching a ride on a boat to get to the mythical “party at the end of the world”. Along the way, as if by osmosis, we learn a bit more about Tony, Micah et al, about their hopes and fears, some of the shit they’ve seen (one has had a father deported, another has raised his siblings because the parents have gone).

In some respects they are like the youth of any era, full half-baked ideas, the received wisdom of a peer group in its own bubble. But the Rosses also catch their specificity. How eclectic they are – kids of Gen Z know who Frank Sinatra and Guns N’ Roses and The Beatles are. Enya, P-Funk and Cheech and Chong are all in the cultural cocktail. They aren’t as hung up on race as their parents. They don’t just talk about their emotions, they reference the fact that they’re talking about their emotions.

They are a delightful group of young people and it’s a delightful movie. The Rosses have an eye for a picturesque image, though they’re coy about making things look too set up. They have cited Easy Rider as an influence and that smoking-round-the-campfire ambience is all pervasive. Also The Wizard of Oz – they’re off to see the wizard, who might or might not exist but they’re going to look for him anyway.

Like Bloody Nose it’s a vibe movie. Rather than being about people or events, it seeks to get the essence of something – youth in this case – in a bottle. The magic of it. No commitments. Fired up with optimism. Everyone prepared to cut you some slack because you’re just kids. Dancing on a beach by a fire and wondering where the next spliff is. A rainbow refracted by a smear of petroleum distillate. Beautiful.






Gasoline Rainbow – Watch it/buy it at Amazon




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© Steve Morrissey 2024







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