Review of The Power of the Dog (2021) by Leonvitali — 04 Dec 2021

Jane Campion returns to the big screen with sensational pretensions: a western set in Montana in 1925 (which echoes in some respects to "Brokeback Mountain", Ang Lee's masterpiece), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons.

A woman, Rose, together with her son Peter (with over-sensitive but sometimes brutally irreverent traits), move to the Ranch of her husband George Burbank, after the two are married: it will be the brother, Phil Burbank, played by a masterful Benedict Cumberbatch, to disturb the sweet and superficial family quiet.

A direction that through its discretion, its close-ups, facial details and long shots, manages to involve us fully within this story that basically speaks of communicability, management of emotions and tolerance.

The enormous abilities of the cult director are to express, through every precise movement of his characters, a characterization so deep that it takes a few viewings to catch every fleeting moment, which makes us discover something more each time to the story and the character itself.

Benedict Cumberbatch is monstrous in his acting, and Kirsten Dunst goes after her which is truly a marvel; he is a curmudgeon, a gruff who takes it out on everyone and who with his brother can only talk about sex almost, ( then in reality it is not so, and here Campion reveals her great skill in blurring her characters, which so skillfully are directed ), she, the mother of the little feminine boy (but virile in her intelligence), grieved to the core for the family situation, manages, with just her gaze (reminiscent of the way she acted in Lars von Trier's "Melancholia"), to say it all, painting a woman devoid of any vital stimulus, if not just for her son.

Jane Campion manages to create tension in every scene, even if superficially the action is superfluous, such as playing a piano: skillfully using the direction and dosing camera movements composed of slow carrellate alternating in montage; just as in the scene in which Rose tries to play the new piano given to her by her husband, for an impending party with high-level figures, but she does not get a musical tune, and begins to get nervous; as if that were not enough enters the scene without being heard, the fateful Phil, who climbed to the second floor, begins to " play " with the inability of the woman in playing, alternating the sound of his instrument with that of Rose, downstairs: close-up from the bottom of the absolute Benedict Cumberbatch and alternating with slow tracking shots to Kirsten Dunst, annoyed beyond words, in an ambiguous game between provocation, arrogance and the desire to dominate.

Spoiler Part: Taking in the whole film, we understand many things towards the end: the boy, Peter, has been skilled in killing Phil; and this is understood from several very subtle actions, which in a regally explicit way are confirmed.

The boy sees in Phil all the evil of his mother, but waits, cunning and firm in his actions; the skins of the gruff man are sold by Rose, and the son, as it happens, in a few scenes before had cut off some pieces of skin from the animal that died of the same disease of Phil, anthrax, as we notice from the blood that comes out of the organ of expulsion dripping.

The fateful evening we understand through a directing game, which shows us an action carried out underwater, that the rope obtained from the skin, still virgin, is touched by Phil, and Campion seems to emphasize it with this shot, as if to emphasize the murder, which is already taking place: in fact it will be the evening of the premeditated murder of the young man, just like a villain, the boy offers him a cigarette, ruthless, as if he offered him the last dinner, the last gift.

The next day, the same boy touches the ready-made rope, finished by Phil, with gloves, precisely because he knows that it still has traces of the disease used for the murder the night before. Why did Peter kill Phil? Because he saw in him every one of his mother's sufferings, from her alcoholism to her relationship problems.

Is he happy about the murder? We can't say for sure, but probably yes: in the last scene, the son sees his mother Rose arriving with her husband George from his brother's funeral; however, they seem to be returning from a party, as the mother passionately kisses her husband: a slow backwards tracking shot, showing the son Peter, who smiles, exits the shot on the left, and the film ends; he got what he wanted, they got rid of the stone in their shoe, and everything settled down for the best.

A very skilled game, which fits everything perfectly at the end of the film: its power lies precisely in the details, extremely studied and meticulous. A proof of the director's mastery, who expertly weaves the canvas for this small modern jewel.