Review of Slow West (2015) by Odjento — 08 Jul 2015

Slow West is an interesting debut from John Maclean, showcasing he has an eye for framing and painting a colourful motion picture, but does so weakly. There are many problems with this film however it is not a bad film but flawed.

Firstly, the film felt unfinished. It is a short film of about 84 minutes which therefore means it rushes in its writing and so the characters don’t get time to fully develop as characters. They can seem fairly vapid at times, and because of this the chemistry between Fassbender and Smit-McPhee does not feel genuine. It seems to rush over our heads.

However, even though the characters and certain scenes may not develop properly enough, the plot still remains interesting enough to see into fruition and does not bore. It starts of pretty standardly with a plot about a boy (Smit-McPhee) travelling the desert to find his love and running into a drifter (Fassbender) who wants to escort him. The plot becomes more interesting when you find out the motives of said drifter and realise the journey to the boys love is more of a race against the clock.

Now as the movie plays you’ll notice one thing about this western; it is a very colourful and pretty western, archetypal from our typical blandly colour schemed dusty baron wasteland. Maclean has made here one of the most visually pleasing westerns out there, with his choice of filming in New Zealand being an excellent choice. It really does make this film just gorgeous and certain frames are definitely screensaver material. This is where Maclean shows he has an eye for the big screen.

One thing I did notice about this film though is that it seemed to have two kinds of segments to it. The first segment seemed to be quietly dismal and brooding in a sense, which contrasted in a sense with the more blackly comical second segment. Because of this, the film feels slightly disjointed going from the first half to the second half. However, both looked fine and were directed well but still felt in mild conflict with each other.

Finally the ending (no spoilers). The ending is filled with tragedy and ends quite bitter sweetly which is unsatisfying in a way. Albeit this, due to its bitter sweetness and non-clichéd ending it – in a sense - paradoxically also satisfies. It’s probably quite a subjective ending to most.

Overall Maclean debuts with a strong visual film that sadly has not been fully realised. Due to his visual eye though Maclean is a director to be on the look-out for in the near future.

Also, on a side note, did anyone else notice that the scene where Fassbender was introduced the leaves on the trees changed from orange the green or vice versa? I swear they did but so far no one else believes me and I’m starting to doubt whether it really did happen. Please clear this up for me as I may be going crazy.

6.