Meek’s Cutoff, the independent fact based film showing currently at the Film Forum in Manhattan, is an experience that draws you in from a rugged distance on a long journey of self discovery and instinct as we follow a small wagon train on the Oregon Trail, circa 1845.
Lost, desperate, and politically identifiable even in today’s modern climate of hostile conspiratorial plutocracy; the measured distance is perhaps too real, as the dialogue is several times too low and the cinematography though adequate and clever doesn’t do this new great American classic justice. I feel almost guilty to want vast color and more beauty but, as such is the symbolism wrought with nature and the heart of the earth beating with every look and stare, engrossing in its dust from a tree to the dessert. In this way director Kelly Reichardt makes the audience part of the experience. It is so immersing, that I almost walked away at the end incidentally without my bag, not to mention my opinion which I quickly changed upon further thought.
Our culture feeds us emotion like fried Twinkies to the point where we are banged on the head with morality, vanity and punditry forgetting the importance of the journey.
This daring original stage performance of a script is a minimalist masterpiece that takes us where we need to be. It should be treasured and even studied by school children. One can’t help but come away affected by the well drawn out lessons of trust, patience, and spirituality; not of a blind faith but from the clarity of the heart. The existentialists have finally made their peace with God here; Beckett and Camus be dammed! A heart must be earned and given.
This is not a film for someone who wants to be awed and entertained with grandiose landscapes, gratifying emotion or high pace action. It is a thinking man’s film with a lady hero leading the way as a moral rock. Michelle Williams, of Dawson’s Creek, was stellar. All the performances were excellent, their subtle distinctions, superb and worth the price of admission alone. The acting and the script coupled with its slow steady realism and symbolism is sheer poetry but don’t go run to see it, walk slowly there, in the rain.
Lost, desperate, and politically identifiable even in today’s modern climate of hostile conspiratorial plutocracy; the measured distance is perhaps too real, as the dialogue is several times too low and the cinematography though adequate and clever doesn’t do this new great American classic justice. I feel almost guilty to want vast color and more beauty but, as such is the symbolism wrought with nature and the heart of the earth beating with every look and stare, engrossing in its dust from a tree to the dessert. In this way director Kelly Reichardt makes the audience part of the experience. It is so immersing, that I almost walked away at the end incidentally without my bag, not to mention my opinion which I quickly changed upon further thought.
Our culture feeds us emotion like fried Twinkies to the point where we are banged on the head with morality, vanity and punditry forgetting the importance of the journey.
This daring original stage performance of a script is a minimalist masterpiece that takes us where we need to be. It should be treasured and even studied by school children. One can’t help but come away affected by the well drawn out lessons of trust, patience, and spirituality; not of a blind faith but from the clarity of the heart. The existentialists have finally made their peace with God here; Beckett and Camus be dammed! A heart must be earned and given.
This is not a film for someone who wants to be awed and entertained with grandiose landscapes, gratifying emotion or high pace action. It is a thinking man’s film with a lady hero leading the way as a moral rock. Michelle Williams, of Dawson’s Creek, was stellar. All the performances were excellent, their subtle distinctions, superb and worth the price of admission alone. The acting and the script coupled with its slow steady realism and symbolism is sheer poetry but don’t go run to see it, walk slowly there, in the rain.
