Please note: This was screened in Feb 2016
Intimate in detail but epic in implication, Kelly Reichardt’s beautiful and eerily poetic alt-Western defied the abiding Western mythology to privilege women’s experience in its telling of the tale of a 19th century wilderness guide who led three young couples and their children toward the new frontier of America's West.
The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families headed by Soloman and Emily Tetherow (Will Patton and Michelle Williams) has hired mountain man Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) to guide them safely over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. As the search for water becomes desperate, group murmuring turns to whether Meek is a know-nothing, a liar, a madman, or someone perhaps even more dangerous. The pioneers' restlessness and panic is further compounded when they encounter and capture a Native American wanderer who crosses their path – a development that sees their trust shifting subtly and inexorably away from the guide who has proven himself so unreliable toward a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy as they trudge onward into an existential unknown.
Infusing proceedings with her trademark minimalism, Director Kelly Reichardt took the Western and audaciously pared it back to the bone creating a film of detached mood and often eerie beauty. Its inward looking narrative and headily large themes made it both a work of considerable originality and a powerful new addition to the genre.