All the way west

Deja 2022-01-07 15:53:23

In recent years, there have not been many good westerns, and fewer and fewer shots have been made.

How to break through the bottleneck is an eternal topic for Hollywood filmmakers. Back then, the praise of the famous French film critic Bazin on Western genre films has long since become a windy past.

John McAllen's "Western Slow Tune" (2015) is undoubtedly the most poetic western film I have seen in recent years. Boy Jay (actor Ben Mendelson, himself quite clear), traveled from Scotland to the United States, hurried to Colorado, looking for his beloved girl Ruth (actually, Ruth is much older than him, it should be said Are older sisters).

Jay meets Cyrus, the mysterious gunman, on the way. This knight, played by Michael Fassbender, is a gangster or a knight, anyway he escorted Jay all the way west. There are many adventures in the wasteland and the snow-capped mountains.

The biggest feature of the film is just like the title, the music is quiet and melodious, and the picture is ethereal and sloppy. Moreover, it neglects its narrative and strives to present a state of loneliness, which can be called a slow western tune. Even the final shootout scene is extremely poetic, think about it, on the boundless wasteland, a small house stands in it, the waves of wheat are rolling, the wormwood is dense, and a bloody battle is about to come...

In order to protect Jay, Cyrus himself was shot on the side, and he could only see the blood splashing and could do nothing. Jay frayed the rope and hurried there, only to be killed by an unknown Ruth. Cyrus said to her, "He has always loved you", making Ruth very regretful. She said, "It's a pity that I don't love him." It turns out that in the rain of bullets, how many love, secrets and longings of the prodigal were buried.

Ruth and Cyrus became the final pair and adopted two abandoned children. They are still waiting in the middle of the wasteland. Sellers quietly told the story of Jay from afar. A wandering, arduous and extremely lonely journey.

Its pervasive gurgling poeticism combines the natural and primitive beauty with the horses in the opposite shadow, forming a strong reflection, from which we can see the vagueness and insignificance of people. In fact, commercial films can also be very poetic, just like John Ford and Nicholas Ray did 60 years ago.

Even though it is disappointed in the end, it is not overly provocative. The emotion is just a sway like a hyacinth. The events didn't seem to be as important as in the past Westerns. The key was to be alone in the night with the twinkling stars, Jay cherished the lingering expectations. To paraphrase an ad slogan that everyone is familiar with more than ten years ago: The stars are always far away, and the moon never sets.

2015, 6, 4

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Extended Reading

Slow West quotes

  • Jay Cavendish: [gazing up at the sky] Same stars, same moon... One day we'll be wanderin' 'round that moon. They'll build a railroad. A railroad up and down the ways. A railroad to the moon. And when we get there... the first thing we'll do... is hunt the natives down.

    Silas Selleck: No Indians on the moon.

    Jay Cavendish: No, the natives of the moon. The moon people.

  • Shop Keeper: [offering a bottle] Whiskey?

    Silas Selleck: [no] Got any meat?

    Shop Keeper: I got condemned bacon. Traded it for bullets. Both'll kill you pretty quick.

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