SLOW WEST
UK/New Zealand, 2015, 84 minutes, colour.Colour.
Kodi Smit- Mc Phee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius.
Directed by John Maclean.
The title is descriptive – but it also serves as a warning for those who might be expecting a lively Western, fast-pace, instead of a slow West.
The film is also brief, the first film by Scottish director John Maclean, and winner of the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Festival in 2015.
The main feature that makes this Western distinctive is that it was filmed in New Zealand, the terrain not looking exactly like the familiar West or even Colorado where the film is set, but the mountains and planes, often bare, that audiences know from their seeing scenes of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth sagas. In some ways, this distances the action from the familiar West, but also involves us more in the characters who pass through these landscapes.
Some of the film was made in Scotland, especially the establishing sequences and some flashbacks where we learn the story of the teenager whom we find riding through Colorado on a quest to find Rose, the young woman with whom he was infatuated back home, and whom he has idealised, but who has fled to America with her father after the death of the young man’s father. The young men is wealthy and so is able to afford this trip even though he is completely inexperienced and soon finds himself in trouble.
The young man, Jay, is played by Australian actor Kodi Smit- Mc Phee, who is been appearing in Australian films like Romulus, My Father and Matching Jack as well as international film is like Let Me In and The Road. A tall thin figure, dressed rather properly, he seems completely out of place as he rides his horse through the West.
Michael Fassbender, becoming well known as a leading man and character actor, Prometheus, Shame, 12 Years a Slave, is Silas who has been a member of a gang riding the West (led by Australia’s Ben Mendelsohn), but has gone out on his own. He saves Jay, accompanies him something like a chaperone, helping him out in difficult circumstances. Jay encounters some Native American Indians fleeing from the military who are shooting them down. He also encounters the gang and its leader. And he finds a man in the desert, studying Indian customs and writing up their extinction, who welcomes him but then takes his goods, leaving him only a note with an arrow pointing west (which he picks up as it blows away and, of course, has no idea where West is).
The film highlights the is isolation when Silas and Jay find a store in the middle of nowhere, only to have a desperate man and his wife hold up the store, leading to deaths, and two young orphans stranded. There is also a strange looking cleric – and we know he could not be in any way a cleric.
The quest leads to the house where Rose and her father live, but there is a bounty of $2000 on them, dead or alive. This means that the alleged cleric arrives and sets up his rifle. The gang arrives, also after the bounty. And Jay walks into the middle of things, happy at last to have finished his quest, to have found Rose.
But this is not a Hollywood picture, rather, an independent small-budget film, so that, while there is something of a happy ending, there is something of a very unhappy ending as well.
Fine to look at, interesting performances, tantalising interpretation of loners in the West, gunfighters and bounty hunters, it is a well-made film that will appeal more to an arthouse audience.
1. The title? Western? Independent, art-house?
2. The Scottish locations, the tirade of Colorado? Filming in New Zealand, New Zealand landscapes of the West? International cast?
3. The narration by Silas, his perspective, the facts, interpretation? The truth?
4. Jay, his age, from Scotland, his infatuation with Rose? Love, smitten? His father and the warnings, the physical attack, his death, father and daughter leaving for America?
5. His going to America, a young man, age, quest? On horseback, guns? An odyssey, experiencing change, learning?
6. The initial encounter with the Indians, their being pursued, apprehended, the shootings, the military and the racism?
7. Silas, saving Jay, his character, protection, mentor? The discussions, travel, surviving in the West, riding, their encounters?
8. The shop, the cleric at the store, the storekeeper, his goods, the desperate man, the gun, his wife, their both being killed, the storekeeper dead? The children as orphans, being taken up by the gang, at the end with Silas and Rose?
9. The student of Indians, camped, the discussions with Jay, Indian rights, spending the night, the man gone, taking Jay’s things, leaving the note about the direction for West? Jay and his bewilderment?
10. The gang, watching from the top of the cliff? Payne, his personality, leadership, Silas as being part of the gang, his story, leaving? The old man and his ironic storytelling? The different members of the group, men and women?
11. Camping, sleeping, the clothes and taken, washed, the line between the two horses, the pursuit?
12. The house, the old man building fences, Rose and her housekeeping, the Indian friend and his visit? The cleric, setting up his rifle, shooting the father? The gang’s arrival, the attack? The shootouts? Jay, his walking, entering the house, seeing Rose, her shooting him? Silas and his shooting, being wounded? The Indian, the arrow, setting fire to the fields, exposing gang, the deaths?
13. The pathos of Jay’s death and the end of his quest?
14. Rose, Silas, the children – and happy ending?
15. Non- American perspective on the American West and the frontier?
