In 2007, the interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed. The second busiest bridge in the state, 35W carried over 140,000 vehicles a day. During rush hour on a Wednesday afternoon in August, the bridge fell into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The collapse garnered national attention, and spurred a closer look at bridge infrastructure around the United States.
Here in the Twin Cities, the 35W bridge collapse was less a national warning and more a local tragedy. The missing bridge was a constant reminder of the loss. The rapid rebuild over the following year was a marvel. The Minnesota Historical Society created an exhibit to commemorate the firefighters who responded to the emergency, and Minneapolis built a beautiful memorial near the new bridge, remembering the dead. Eight years have passed, but we keep finding new ways t o remember the day that bridge fell. This year, that comes through Patrick Coyle’s new film, The Public Domain.
The Public Domain does not end with the tragedy of the freeway falling, but opens with it, on that sunny August afternoon. The camera introduces four people who will find their lives stunted after the bridge comes down. A young writer, Linda, sits in her car in traffic. A young artist, Johnny, waits out an AA meeting. A middle-aged man in advertising, David, works late and lies about it to his wife. A casting agent, Lana, does whatever she needs to succeed, is plying her ways. The audience sees each, only in glimpses.
When the bridge falls, we see it through Linda’s windshield, as the truck behind her disappears. Chaos ensues. But the film steps aside from the melee and jumps ahead seven years, to The Public Domain.
The Public Domain is a bar (the real life Strip Club, on St. Paul’s East Side) that will serve as the central hub of these intermingling stories. The Public Domain is wandering film, the kind that slowly intertwines the lives of strangers. Viewers have gotten used to this story structure over the years, but when done effectively, it remains immensely satisfying to see strangers coalesce.
The Public Domain was written and directed by Patrick Coyle. Coyle is from the Twin Cities and his film is among the most Minnesota-feeling movies you are likely to find. Coyle made the film with a $175,000 grant from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund meaning the movie was not just made in Minnesota, but it was paid for by Minnesotans.
image courtesy of Ten Ten Films
Much of the movie takes place outside, in the streets of Minneapolis, where residents bustle from home to work to the bar in jackets pulled up and breath dissipating in the air. The walk and talk of Minnesota winter life is captured naturally; a benefit of casting Minnesota talent.
The cunning casting director Lana is played by Sara Marsh. The kinky ad-man David is played Mark Benninghofen, a regular performer at the Guthrie, in Minneapolis. Peter Christian Hanson, who plays the saintly recovering alcoholic / starving artist Johnny, is another feature at the Guthrie, as well as the artistic director of the Gremlin Theater in St. Paul. Each are fine in their way, Hanson particularly. Also, in her cameo, Naomi Ko (Dear White People) shines.
Linda, meanwhile, is played by the LA native Emily Bridges. Ms. Bridges (she of the Bridges Family) was in Minneapolis attending graduate school at the University of Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Leadership program when she got the part.
By the time Johnny the artist gets a job as a sausage stuffer at Kramarczuk’s Deli, you realize that the film has Minnesota not just in its budget but in its blood.
While some of the conceits of these characters just don’t work (Linda, who works as a ghost writer, has several uninteresting black and white flashbacks / novelizations of her sordid relationship with her stepbrother that add little to the story) The Public Domain manages to build a slow swell that pays off. On the Feast of St. Casimir, a Polish holiday celebrating the patron saint of Poland and Bachelors, the lives of these four Minnesotans will come together at The Public Domain for a surprising, subtle and pleasing cinematic finale.
The Public Domain opens this Friday at the Film Society at Saint Anthony Main.
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