Gerry is about two guys named Gerry. Actually, Gerry is just what they call each other. In Gerry-speak, it means "fuck up" and is variously used as a noun, verb and adjective. And the two Gerrys in Gerry Gerry when they drive to Death Valley, get out of the car and walk. And walk. Gerry and Gerry occasionally break the monotony to talk about TV shows or "the thing" at the end of the hike. It gradually dawns on them that they're lost. Faced with the possibility of dying of thirst, they keep walking. And walking.

The new collaboration between two of Good Will Hunting's stars, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, and its director, Gus Van Sant, cannot be described with such terms as "crowdpleaser," "uplifting" or even "unstoppable thrill-ride." Instead, Gerry is austere, largely wordless and much more about motion and landscape than story and character. Just as the film's Beckett-sized dose of absurdity and futility plays havoc with the actors' frat-boy screen personas, Gerry's deadpan minimalism will Gerry the heads of anyone who rushes out to see "the new Matt Damon movie." Though certainly not designed for casual viewing, Gerry is too visually rich and mordantly witty to deserve the slagging it's received in some quarters.

This daring and demanding film also represents a return to form for Van Sant, who became a darling of the indie film scene with Mala Noche (1985) and Drugstore Cowboy (1989) before turning to more Hollywood-friendly projects like To Die For (1995) and Good Will Hunting (1997). Van Sant was in the midst of finishing Finding Forrester when he started planning a movie with Damon and Affleck based on the true story of two lost hikers. As Van Sant writes in his notes on the film, the director's "major addition to this project was the idea of doing something onscreen that was much more like real time."

He began showing the actors films by the late Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr, the Hungarian director famous for his epic-length shots. In an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, Van Sant describes the impact of watching Tarr's seven-hour Satantango a few years ago. "Even though I'd seen a lot of films, it hadn't dawned on me how useful a more literal kind of shot could be," he says.

It reminded Van Sant of a film less likely to meet with the approval of cinephiles: a B-movie starring Chesty Morgan and her improbable bustline. (He forgets the title but from his description, it sounds like the classic Deadly Weapons.) "Whenever anyone went somewhere in the movie," says Van Sant, "the director would show the whole action. If Chesty went from here to another location, they would always show her leave the room, walk down the hall, go outside, get in the car and drive away. Then they'd show the car arriving at the location, her getting out and walking through the door. They would never jumpcut. I'd always use that as an example of a film with unnecessary stuff. With Satantango, you're watching essentially the same thing, but all of a sudden it's really important. Back when I was in college learning about movies, this extraneous information was hugely unimportant. And now, at 50, I feel the opposite."

That attitude may explain scenes like the uninterrupted 10-minute shot in which Matt literally moves dirt around so Casey can jump off a rock without Gerrying his ankle. Apparently, the idea of creating a genuine sense of time as figures moved (or failed to move) through a landscape was of paramount importance. "In our case, the dialogue is ancillary to the progress of the story," says Van Sant. "They're not talking about anything except when they are talking about the direction they are going. Movie dialogue is generally about the story or the story has something to do with the dialogue, as opposed to the dialogue being unrelated, which it so often is in life."

Besides the cinematography by Harris Savides, the most impressive aspect of Gerry is its sense of quiet. Though the soundtrack does incorporate music by Arvo Part and an array of disorienting effects, it is a film that understands the power of silence.

"I always liked a story someone told me about a trip they took in North Africa," says Van Sant. "They drove out into the desert with four Moroccans and pulled over. Everybody got out and sat in a circle for an hour. Then they got back in the car and drove back. That was their trip. It wasn't about talking or having a discussion -- it was about being in the desert together. And that's something that wouldn't really happen in our culture. We don't have this notion of silence. We have a lot of desire to have dialogue all the time. And that's sort of annoying to me."