My Pacified Pacific
Meek's Cutoff (2010)
directed by Kelly Reichardt
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Even Dead Man fell back on the "minority figure helps white guy find grace" cliche, and people talked about Jim Jarmusch as if he'd reinvented the western. But Dead Man is a great movie anyway (I'm still waiting on that bear coat before I dress up as Blake next Halloween*), and it's okay for its uniqueness to flourish within the boundaries of a well-established genre. I don't mind open-ended narratives or movies that forgo the traditional arc of a "well-told story," but Meek's Cutoff is better described by what it isn't than what it is, and that's a problem. Not a disaster, just a problem.
The mere presence of an Indian (stuntman Rod Rondeaux, who is not asked to perform a stunt) makes this a movie with a message, no matter how unwilling Reichardt seems to be to commit to what, exactly, that message is. That settlers don't understand Native American culture? That there's a heck of a lot of wilderness out west? The heroes of the film - thoughtful Emily and Soloman Tetherow - can play conscientious and considerate while the bad guy - an inexplicably hammy Bruce Greenwood - threatens to blow off the savage's head. They're lost, and that's tricky for everyone, and wouldn't you know that different folks react differently to such news.
The movie is hardly torture to sit through, but the ten-minute, equally non-committal "making of" extra feature shows just as much scenery with even fewer conversations. One more layer of self-awareness - an Abbas Kiarostami-like mash-up of documentary and fiction - might have saved it, but oh well.
* An acquisition that will also permit the realization of my second most-desired costume, that of John McCabe, sad town founder.
directed by Kelly Reichardt
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Even Dead Man fell back on the "minority figure helps white guy find grace" cliche, and people talked about Jim Jarmusch as if he'd reinvented the western. But Dead Man is a great movie anyway (I'm still waiting on that bear coat before I dress up as Blake next Halloween*), and it's okay for its uniqueness to flourish within the boundaries of a well-established genre. I don't mind open-ended narratives or movies that forgo the traditional arc of a "well-told story," but Meek's Cutoff is better described by what it isn't than what it is, and that's a problem. Not a disaster, just a problem.
The mere presence of an Indian (stuntman Rod Rondeaux, who is not asked to perform a stunt) makes this a movie with a message, no matter how unwilling Reichardt seems to be to commit to what, exactly, that message is. That settlers don't understand Native American culture? That there's a heck of a lot of wilderness out west? The heroes of the film - thoughtful Emily and Soloman Tetherow - can play conscientious and considerate while the bad guy - an inexplicably hammy Bruce Greenwood - threatens to blow off the savage's head. They're lost, and that's tricky for everyone, and wouldn't you know that different folks react differently to such news.
The movie is hardly torture to sit through, but the ten-minute, equally non-committal "making of" extra feature shows just as much scenery with even fewer conversations. One more layer of self-awareness - an Abbas Kiarostami-like mash-up of documentary and fiction - might have saved it, but oh well.
* An acquisition that will also permit the realization of my second most-desired costume, that of John McCabe, sad town founder.
posted by NPK at 6:58 AM
<< Home