I saw Meek's Cutoff at the LFF today. More than prairies there are wide skies and endless stretches of desert that our settlers, led by an extravagant and boisterous guide, have to cope with. Their Oregon trail turns into a psychological tour de force as the settlers face their most basic fears. It's a film about being lost, facing the unknown, the necessity to trust combined with a basic survival instinct that alerts to not trust.
The film has a low pace, it's definitely not a Western as we know it, but it draws you in, you almost feel part of the group. I loved how the characters struggle to keep their social habits, they wander the desert almost aimlessly (we never discover whether they reach the journey's end) and still lay a table and use chairs to eat their meals. There is something about the human condition that really makes me smile. Endurance I guess.
Meek is an odd-ball character, he's not good nor bad, a bit of a show off, but very ambiguous. Bruce Greenwood is fantastic as Meek, his voice is the only thing that breaks the silence in an otherwise incredibly quiet film, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and the rest of the cast are also amazing in their simplicity.
I find it almost hard to believe this is an American film. It feels European in the sense that it is so much about the people and nothing else. It's a journey, inside and out. No shootings, no violence, no Sheriff badges being waved around, just the core elements of the conquer of the American frontier. Thumbs up.
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