MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

Slow West

9/7/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Jon Kissel

Slow West wins the 'Ain't Them Bodies Saints' award.  Like that earlier period drama, this one also manages to blow its excellent cinematograpy with too much telling instead of showing.  This is a significant let down because John Maclean's debut feature hits on several themes that I've long found interesting.  The collision of the Old and New World, romantic ideas of the West, and some interesting gender politics are present, but Maclean's script lacks the courage of its convictions. 

Michael Fassbender's character Silas Selleck narrates the goings-on, in which noble Scottish emigre Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is traversing the post Civil War frontier by himself, in search of his old-country crush Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius) and her father John (Rory McCann).  The low-born Ross's fled to the US after contributing to an accidental death.  Ill-suited to make the dangerous journey through war-town Indian country, Jay teams up with Silas, ostensibly as a guide though Silas is actually using Jay as a stooge.  Silas, and several other bounty hunters including a group led by the prolific Ben Mendelsohn, are searching for the Ross's, and Jay is leading everyone to them.

Filmed in New Zealand, Slow West looks so good that it nears the Uncanny Valley.  Establishing shots appear too painterly to be real.  Shot by Robbie Ryan, who also did the cinematography for Andrea Arnold's haunting Wuthering Heights, Slow West never lets the viewer forget how empty the environment is.  Characters often find themselves alone in vast fields, dwarfed by the untamed landscape with nothing in sight for miles.  Maclean and Ryan also juxtapose the expansive with the claustrophobic, as dust storms box characters in or dense forests limit movement.  As strong an advertisement for New Zealand as anything Peter Jackson has done, the natural beauty of the film communicates what was both alluring and forbidding about the frontier. 

The environment forms one half of that frontier equation, and the cultural response to it forms the other.  People like Jay, full of the romanticism that wealth allows for, were needed to spread the word, though people like Silas and the Ross's were the ones that had to do the hard and dangerous work of bending it to their will.  Jay's romantic notions are quickly disabused, as an early scene finds him wandering through a devastated forest, he going in one direction and Indian widows and children moving in the other.  Those he encounters on the way are desperate enough to steal or cunning enough to trick him out of his possessions.  Jay looks down on Silas as a brute, but Silas is surviving, and for far longer than the badly-prepared Jay could hope for.  The film proposes that survival requires a base of Silas with a pinch of Jay, lest all humanity be lost.  How those refugee Indians fit into the equation is something best not thought about.

In attempting to make a statement on Manifest Destiny, Maclean overplays his hand.  The narration is completely unnecessary, and repeatedly tells the viewer obvious things.  The pairing of Jay and Silas is textbook odd-couple, with each rubbing off on the other.  A traveling anthropologist apparently is coming from seeing Avatar in daguerrotypes, as he predicts that the vanishing Indians will eventually be condescended to with the noble savage trope.  It's in this formula and speechifying that Slow West loses its way.  A film that looks as great as this one should trust its audience to pay attention.

That impulse to make sure the viewer understands what the director is going for will hopefully be remedied as Maclean continues to work.  Slow West is close to being great, culminating as it does in a thrilling, unpredictable climax where motives are turned on their head and salt is literally poured in wounds.  A contemplative turn following the resolution is so striking, I'm surprised more films haven't done it before.  Hopefully, Maclean returns to the Western well with more faith in his audience.  B-


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Side Pieces

    Random projects from the MMC Universe. 

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Drew
    Author - Jon
    Author - Phil
    Author - Sean
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Best Of The Decade
    Classics
    Comedy
    Crime
    Documentary
    Drama
    Ebertfest
    Game Of Thrones
    Historical
    Horror
    Musical
    Romance
    Sci Fi
    Thriller
    TV
    Western

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed