Diane

Diane ist eine, die sich kümmert. Um ihre krebskranke Cousine, um ihren drogensüchtigen Sohn, um die mittellosen Mitglieder ihres Gemeinwesens. Sie ist ein Vorbild an sozialer Verantwortung und tätigen Mitgefühls, sie versucht möglicherweise auch, mit ihrem Handeln etwas wiedergutzumachen. Kent Jones’ preisgekröntes Spielfilmdebüt besticht mit der Aufmerksamkeit, die es seinen Alltagsfiguren und deren Alltagsleben schenkt. Und Mary Kay Place in der Titelrolle bildet mit ihrer ruhigen, facettierten Darstellung sein Zentrum – ein warm schlagendes Herz, schmerzend mitunter, weil es im Leben so viele Abschiede gibt. Aber auch so viel Liebe. (Alexandra Seitz)

In Anwesenheit von Kent Jones.

In a sublime passage, Diane stops her car and walks through a snowy forest. The scene ends in a subjective high-angle shot in which the aesthetic emotion of the main character can be fully appreciated: Her eyes witness the beauty of the trees and how this beauty goes beyond ordinary existence. This is a decisive moment within the plot because the character’s intimacy is not fully submitted to an ecosystem and a culture, and it is therefore not by chance that we hear John Cage’s “In the Landscape.” Whereas the film’s subject is the feeling of finitude, its context is that of those anonymous and anodyne American villages where very few things ever happen. That is why the intertwining of the self, the circumstances, and the landscape becomes a gentle evidence of the system of relationships which Jones is able to stage thanks to his understanding of an idiosyncrasy and of his character’s uniqueness. Diane has an addict son whom she is trying to help and a dying relative whom she accompanies, she spends quite a lot of time with her friends, and she also uses her spare time showing solidarity towards the dispossessed by means of serving them lunches or suppers. Time flies by unaccounted, the elder die and Diane experiences discreet revelations in which she glimpses fleeting moments of beauty. (Roger Koza)

In the presence of Kent Jones.