The Lost Coast

D: Gabriel Fleming; with Ian Scott McGregor, Lucas Alifano, Lindsay Benner, Chris Yule

Metaphor abounds on the Lost Coast: Mossy, fern-draped trails drip with cloudy innuendo; an angry, churning Pacific roars as cleansing boundary; desolate parking lots and the street crush that is the Castro at Halloween inspire contemplations of inner emptiness. Likewise, homage in the forms of a Bergman bauta, an Antonioni corpse, or a Truffaut brim-tip (�I�m a French guy! From the Sixties!�) all deliver narrative blows. Even the title itself, words taken separately or together, imply literal and figurative journeys taken by the film�s quadrangle of gay/straight lovers/friends, adrift in confusion and awash in the trappings and revelations that come with quarterlife. Through this lens, the film�s overt symbolism becomes less cloying, more elegant, a symbol itself � a meditative, timeless ode to that trying decade between adolescence and acumen, when everything is loaded and epic and literary and, yes, even filmic, if for one foggy San Francisco night.

This article appears in March 14 • 2008.

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