WHERE TO LAND

Please don’t treat this like a traditional review. I am a big Hal Hartley fan and pretty biased. Much like his last feature film; Ned Rifle, the band has gotten back together again on a slightly smaller scale. Ned Rifle featured almost every Hal Hartley stock actor from every era of his filmmaking. This time around the movie stars all of his “day ones”: Robert John Burke, Bill Sage and Edie Falco (non-day one Hartley regular Dwight Ewell also makes an appearance). Even the score, done by Hartley himself, is reminiscent of early stuff like Unbelievable Truth and Trust. Just off of those aspects alone, I am very nostalgic. It’s difficult for me to shake all the underlying history associated with Hartley’s latest film (again - do not take this as a traditional review).

Where To Land is extremely meta to Hartley’s life. I know filmmakers don’t always like when critics or analysts forcibly connect events in a movie to their personal life but the story is about a once popular aging semi-retired filmmaker of romantic comedies who’s having a midlife crisis. He doesn’t have any children and is unmarried. He’s drawing up a last will and testament and suddenly wants to stop filmmaking all together and work as a groundskeeper (he develops a fascination with cemeteries). He also may or may not be the biological father to an aspiring young film writer. Because of all these recent changes in his life, everyone around him mistakenly assumes he’s going to die soon when in fact he’s just making arrangements for later in life and is looking to do something new.

I can’t speak to Hal Hartley having a mid-life crisis because I don’t know him, but he is a filmmaker who’s output isn’t as steady as it used to be. He doesn’t have any children and while his movies are considered “art house” or “indie”, they are in fact romantic. Love and romantic relationships are a major part of almost every film he’s made over the last 40 years. 

Speaking of “arthouse” - Hartley makes sure to portray his cinematic-self as a down to earth “every man” instead of a pretentious cigarette smoking artsy filmmaker that dresses in all black. I’m not saying that’s an accurate description of art house filmmakers, but from Bergman to Godard, there’s this basic American SNL/Simpsons stereotype of the depressed artsy filmmaker. Of what little I know about Hartley outside of filmmaking, he’s a very nice guy that’s down to earth (he is from the working class neighborhood of Lindenhurst, Long Island).

Hartley even throws in a self-referencing easter egg. How else am I supposed to take this??

Where To Land

Bill Sage 30 years apart in similar scenes/moments in Hartley's Flirt and Amateur...

Flirt / Where To Land

Not only is Flirt (1995) one of his most romantic films, but it’s also the film he’s most proud of (he said this years ago in an interview for the AVclub).


Another interesting Easter egg is Hartley’s ongoing nod to Godard. After almost 40 years it could be seen as lazy to keep comparing Hartley to Godard, but he certainly goes out of his way to reference or namedrop Godard in his work…

Where To Land

Hartley referencing Godard over the years...

Alphaville / The Book Of Life

Alphaville / The Book Of Life

Oh, Woe Is Me / Henry Fool

First Name Carmen / Simple Men

First Name Carmen / No Such Thing

Band Of Outsiders / Amateur

It’s common for filmmakers to have one of their regular actors play them in their own movie. Both Harvey Keitel and Matthew Modine have played iterations of Abel Ferrara. Denis Lavant has played slightly fictitious versions of Leos Carax throughout their 40 year actor/director relationship. This time around, Bill Sage plays a slightly fictitious version of Hal Hartley. Who better to play "Hartley" than his most regularly used actor?


This isn’t a movie that you just stumble upon. You’re either a Hal Hartley fan like myself that sought this out, or a film critic/writer that covers independent cinema. At this point, Hartley is an American independent film legend so his features will always gain attention from specific publications and journals (this is his first feature in over a decade).
I know this is a contradiction but Where To Land is one of my favorite films of the year but I would only recommend it to other Hal Hartley fans or folks that are in to interesting independent/art films outside of movies that might play at an AMC.

On a personal note, as someone who questioned their morality a lot this year (due to serious health issues which have now been dealt with) and was constantly surrounded by loved ones - it hits close to home when one of my personal favorite directors makes a film dealing with the same stuff.