Meek's Cutoff

These are good times for film lovers to place their trust in women. Just like Andrea Arnold with Wuthering Heights, Kelly Reichardt takes you on a journey to another time and place without it feeling like it’s very far away, but she does so with much more minimalism. It is as though you are sitting right there at the campfire. But not the romantic kind. In 1845, three couples of colonisers are among the first to travel west in America. Slowly, the oxen pull the covered wagons containing their meagre belongings. The frontiersman Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) has all the appearance of an experienced guide who can lead them through the Oregon desert. His shorter route to the promised land, however, leads to nothing but misery. The pioneers get lost in breath-taking but desolate landscapes, their supplies run out, and the search for water becomes a matter of life or death. Meek wants to kill the native American they have taken captive. Emily (Michelle Williams) intercedes, and he is spared. Would the feared native not make a better guide? Forget the plot. Meek’s Cutoff excels thanks to its atmosphere, telling silences, subtle observation of the everyday actions on a dangerous adventure, the group dynamic, and the relations between the men and the women. When important decisions are made, the men seclude themselves. They each process the terrible ordeal in their own way, which constantly changes the dynamic. Don’t wait for relieving shoot-outs because you’ll be waiting forever. This mysterious western explores new territory. One of the ways it does so is by finally showing us a woman’s perspective on the campfire, on the journey between two lives, between yesterday and tomorrow, and on getting lost. If all goes well, you too will be swept up in the numbing trance of their dusty, thirsty, highly uncertain journey.

Meek’s Cutoff •••
US, 2010, dir.: Kelly Reichardt, act.: Michelle Williams, Shirley Henderson, Bruce Greenwood, 100 min.