There is a glorious wide-eyed openness to Bill and Turner Ross’s Gasoline Rainbow.
A tale of five teenage friends embarking on a post-high school road trip from their backwater Oregon town, it brims with the captivating allure of new horizons. Made with the Ross Brothers’ trademark disregard for the boundaries between documentary and fiction, employing the same improvisational style as their recent hit Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020). Here, the narrative was conceived of by the filmmakers before then being embellished in concert with their young cast. Representing the filmmakers’ bow on the Lido, the film has its world premiere as part of Venice’s Orizzonti competition.
The glamour and romance of Venice feel a long way from Wiley, Oregon. It’s the small town in which Nathaly (Nathaly Garcia), Makai (Makai Garza), Tony (Tony Aburto), Nichole (Nichole Dukes) and Micah (Micah Bunch) have all just graduated high school and from which they are setting out on one last adventure – to see the Pacific coast for the first time – before the drudgery of adulthood beckons. They pile into an RV with hardly a penny to their names and intend to see where the wind takes them. “When there’s nothing to do, you just venture… you’re always trying to find something.” In fact, what they embark on is a 500-mile journey by car, train, boat, and foot, where they will meet strangers occupying a selection of society’s margins and where wild new experiences will be punctuated with moments of poignant friendship and reflection.
In the materials surrounding the film, the directors have described it as like “the cast of Streetwise navigating the wild roads of Easy Rider,” and it’s a perfect summation of a piece that deftly balances rebellious attitudes and unfettered autonomy against the stark realities of its protagonists’ lives. On the one hand, Gasoline Rainbow is a frenetic romp, on the other, a textured portrait of five young people at a major juncture in their lives. From the roaring jet-engine static that accompanies their departure from Wiley (and recalls Easy Rider), this is a voyage of discovery that careers from drug and alcohol-fuelled all-night parties to glorious sunrises over majestic Oregon landscapes or a midday dip in a hazy, lazy pool. Drama ensues when the wheels are stolen from their van in the night and they’re forced to walk for miles before freighthopping to Portland and subsequently traveling by boat to a coastal party they’ve been told about and decide to aim for, called The End of the World.
Along the way – at fireside parties, skate parks, and dive bars – they encounter a procession of intriguing characters, most of whom exist, in some way, on the social periphery. Amongst their shared revelries come deeper conversations that hint at the situations of these passing acquaintances, but more pertinently allow for insight into the teens at the film’s center. There is no one-size-fits-all narrative for Nathaly, Makai, Tony, Nichole, and Micah – elements of their pasts emerge in unexpected ways and regularly ground the film’s more uproarious energy. At the same time, it never becomes somber, instead, instances of heightened sentiment and emotional vulnerability only serve to strengthen the bond between the group. “Family is where you don’t feel like you need to be perfect… or fit their needs,” someone suggests in one of the moments of infrequent voiceover that are dotted through the film, hinting at recorded interviews but quite possibly the result of campfire chats. At some point, each of the teens intimates – or directly reveals – elements of their family lives, and these tend to reinforce the sense that the group is a surrogate family, one chosen and held onto tightly.
The relationships presented feel both familiar to the coming-of-age movies of the past, but also uniquely of today. The film might be Streetwise meets Easy Rider, but in that case, both have been reimagined through the lens of the TikTok generation. Even the Rosses filmmaking adopts some formal techniques that place it within this context – primarily in sequences, dotted throughout, that directly reference social media aesthetics and interject fleeting stills montages that could equally have been thrown up by the algorithm. The filmmaking beyond these moments is also filled with a vibrancy that is presumably a product of being filmed very much on the road with the group – all of it infuses Gasoline Rainbow with a vitality that echoes that of its protagonists. There will be laughter, there will be tears – it’s a hell of a ride.
Directors, screenplay, cinematography, editing: Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross
Cast: Nathaly Garcia, Makai Garza, Tony Aburto, Nichole Dukes, Micah Bunch
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Carlos Zozaya, Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross
Music: Casey Wayne McAllister
Sound: Cesar Gonzalez Cortes, Mauricio Perez
Production design: Erin Staub
Production: Department of Motion Pictures, MUBI, XTR
International Sales: The Match Factory
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti)
In English
110 minutes
