Loot

Loot

88 Minutes

An impressively clear-eyed meditation on a variety of topics, Loot plays out like a distressing rejoinder to classic childhood fantasies, of buried treasure, paternal power and the satisfaction of war. It also operates a lot like fiction. And while it doesn’t sound like the best praise to say that a documentary resembles something invented, in this case it’s a total compliment. Darius Marder’s debut film has all the lean emotional economy of first-rate narrative drama.

The main players are Lance Larson, a Utah treasure hunter and entrepreneur, and Andrew and Darrel, two WWII vets. The connections between these people are staggering enough to seem cast. If it wasn’t for the dogged pushiness of Lance, who has lost a fortune in the pursuit of treasure, and seems poised to do anything to find it, it might seem that way. Both veterans have buried and then lost track of caches of enemy booty at the end of the war. Both have painful family histories and lost young sons to drug abuse. Lance’s son Michael is also struggling with addiction, and this connection helps shape the story into an at times heartbreaking tale of fathers and sons.

It’s also an examination of the power of material symbols. Before long the buried loot – several rare samurai swords and a heaping pile of stolen jewelry – ends up conflated with the buried memories of these men, who both admit to seeing lots of things they wish they hadn’t. One talks about dumping troop carriers full of Japanese soldiers into the ocean, and beating another to death with his bare hands.

Marder says that he was drawn to the morally dubious nature of the story, the ethical quagmire of this entire venture which none of the subjects ever discusses. But the film becomes much more than an exploration of this dilemma, extending to a deliberation on the value of objects and the general madness of war. It takes great care in cataloging the contents of Andrew’s house, littered with Elvis memorabilia, hospital urine containers, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in his garage, the money now useless without a son to pass it on to. Yet despite this heavy topical load the film never feels overextended.

Its only real fault is that it never really cracks the surface of Lance, who is presented dually as an opportunistic cipher and a well-meaning schlub. He’s often made the butt of jokes, an easy diversion that suggests a more troubling tendency, dropping steely-eyed focus to trade puerile smirks with the audience, as when a cache of porno magazines turns up in Andrew’s house.

Yet Loot never feels nearly as exploitative as it could, even as the ending dips into tear-jerking pathos. This is sometimes achieved by throwing up Lance’s clumsy determination as a shield against possible accusations, casting him as the exploiter to shift that focus from the film itself. But he’s far too guileless to seem very threatening, and for the most part the two old men are willing partners in the hunt. Both view the physical treasure as a sort of emotional blockage that they need to overcome.

The more time we spend with them, the easier it is to question how men this decidedly moral ended caught up in wartime frenzy, where they felt no compunction about stealing, or killing for that matter. Lance repeatedly reassures them that God will not judge them for their actions, that these things are excusable in war, a reassurance that only brings to mind atrocities on the other side of that conflict. And while Loot never goes so far as to make any judgments, it portrays the two old men as suitably punished by themselves, doomed to relive crimes committed and treasures unfound.

by Jesse Cataldo