Review of Meek's Cutoff (2011) by Parker M — 13 May 2011

3.5 Stars out of 4.

I haven't really liked a film like Meek's Cutoff in awhile. Cinema today is so exposed to too much dialogue, cutting, fast cars, scantily clad women, and predictable stories. Meek's Cutoff one should like because it carries all those opposite thing. There is barren dialogue, detaching long shots, slow covered wagons, and women clothed to the bone. You could call this film predictable but in a fascinating, existential way.

It's not a Revisionist Western but a Feminist. Not in its radical terms but that director Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy) chooses to place the camera to identify with the female party: alienated, silent, but fierce. The film does not promote the power of women but the futility of patriarchy, its flaws and downfall in an unsettled world that has forsaken its women. The story is absurdist on one hand with its aimless narrative, but also sincerely true. The world has its evils, injustices and emptiness. No man or woman can change that.

The story is not a plot as those tend to have arcs and payoffs. I would call the story a "circle", riding through its own ring of chaos. So, there you have it. The circle involves a group of pilgrims travelling to Oregon. They are led by Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) who you know is the leader from his horn and pistol. He guides the travellers across an empty desert, where the wind howls too loud for its own good.

The opening is atypical for a Western. Usually in a Western, there is a duel, a battle, or just a happy arrival of the hero. In Meek's Cutoff, silence is its weapon. The settlers search for water, gather wood, and walk sluggishly towards "Oregon". They wish they were. All we hear is the desert, its bellowing winds and dehydrated flies buzzing nearby but out of sight. Our "heroes" are immediately helpless, living mundane lives traditionally unaccustomed to cowboys or any movie protagonists.

As for Stephen Meek you would be a fool to call him a hero, even an antihero. Any of those types have the least bit of competence, smarts or wit. Meek has the astuteness of a mule and one feels restless in his presence. He keeps devising plans that go nowhere and taking routes that do not go any further. The man is lost but the worst part about that is will not admit it.

The women, there are three, are Glory (Shirley Henderson), Millie (Zoe Kazan), and Emily (Michelle Williams). They have minds of their own but those are repressed by the imperiousness of the men. What is important to know, I suppose, is Michelle is leader of the women, Zoe has an antsy but handy son Jimmy (Tommy Nelson), and Henderson is pregnant. None of these traits have a purpose other than to be traits, which they are.

The men, there are four adults, are the aforementioned Meek, William (Neal Huff), Solomon (Will Patton), and Thomas (Paul Dano who was also out in the desolate desert in There Will Be Blood). They make decisions that are out of our ear shot. Reichardt, when the men gather, likes to frame the conversation in closeup to alienate the audience from the inner workings and partnership with men. The audience is the women: detached, alone, and neglected. The film's lack of triumph suggests that without the voice of femininity the world may be misbegotten place.

The atmosphere connotes much of the film. Reichardt makes the noises of the desert more important that the action of the characters. But where the vast landscapes used to be romanticized in Westerns, here they represent emptiness and impossible freedom. The tops of mountains and hills are just endless horizons leading to - well - more desert. The landscape is practically the settler's grave, and is as dry as their humour. As the characters do have their funny moments, but that wit is more rueful than full of glee. We laugh because everyone is so helplessly lost.

An inquiry I have is how much lighting did Reichardt use? Most scenes are either in pitch black lightened by the faint flames of a lantern, or the scene is relentlessly bright. It's another hint that Reichardt's exterior world is more alive than its inner one. The characters too are extroverts. I think the actors are playing mannerisms because complexity in such a "circle" like this is uncalled for. By only knowing these characters from the outside, we remain detached and repressed - like the women.

The music is by Jeff Grace who has a simmering and searing soundtrack how Johnny Greenwood did in There Will Be Blood. Yes, there is music here but there does not really need to be. The film's best moments are accompanied in the ecstasy of silence as characters wander from one place to the other and "are close but not sure to what." This is a story about neither the journey nor the destination. It spins its wheels on purpose and that is beauty of it.

Its audacious under its own terms. What Reichardt has succeeded in here is an effective practice in minimalism. While, at the same time, she magically maximizes the suspense. This is unheard of lately. With the arrival of an outcast character (of whom I won't identify) we immediately think he is the deus ex machina here to save the day but instead leads the characters further off the beaten path. This character is most important because is also alienated as he does not speak their language. That is all I will say.

The film is not as daringly subversive like how A Fistful of Dollars was to the Classic Western and Unforgiven was to the Spaghetti Western. Since Meek's Cutoff does not believe in conclusions it does not easily provide answers. The characters still are on their same tracks, making me wonder if another director will find them and continue their struggles one day. Meek's Cutoff, nevertheless, turns heads in how it starts by punishing its characters and rarely awarding them. Though the glacially paced Meek's Cutoff will not be for everyone that is where, I think, its greatest compliment resides.

Note: there are two gunshots fired in Meek's Cutoff. Both in the air. These shots are both fired by a woman.