"Gerry" was the first of several films to return director Gus Van Sant to the good graces of serious film fans after several years of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking had dimmed the memory of early masterpieces like "Drugstore Cowboy." This film represents the new Van Sant: minimalist dialogue, graceful camera movements across long takes, and a real appreciation for quiet rhythms. The plot can be summed up in a sentence: two friends, both named Gerry, get lost in the desert and wander aimlessly as they get closer to death. The two Gerrys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) say very little to each other, only mumbling inanities in true slacker style, and most of the film consists of long shots of them simply walking in silence through desert landscapes. Van Sant introduces a subtle surrealism too, cueing the viewer in to the fact that this story should be taken metaphorically rather than literally. For one thing, the situations these two find themselves in are faintly ridiculous; at one point, Affleck finds himself trapped atop a high rock with no clear idea how he got himself up there or how he'll get down. And throughout the film, the landscape is constantly changing without warning, a product of the fact that Van Sant shot the film in several very different desert terrains throughout the world. These Gerrys are lost in a kind of Ur-desert, a symbolic wasteland that stands in for the emptiness of the society they represent. They are disconnected from each other and from anyone else, and the film's longest conversation is about a video game. But apart from its symbolic content, "Gerry" is simply a beautiful and hypnotic film, with its constant shots of wide-open landscapes and the steady rhythm of walking. It's very easy to get lost in the blank expanses of this film, pondering its ideas and the beauty of its imagery, and that's why Van Sant's accomplishment is so impressive. From seemingly little material, he's crafted a beautiful and thought-provoking film.