Rating: Ah, the Western. The gift we love to pretend has stopped giving. Periodically, a movie set in the 1800s featuring cowboys and quick-fire gun action comes along and everyone makes big statements about how it used to be a cinematic cornerstone and now, well, isnt (for an answer to why that happened, see Toy Story). The thing is, while the Western did decrease in prominence and certainly went away from the mainstream, it is still fighting strong. How would the annual (or, for 2015 it seems, bi-monthly) tradition of commenting on the genres long-past heyday still exist otherwise? What is worth remarking on in regards to the Western is how pretty much every noteworthy recent entry in the genre (even, to a degree, the dire Cowboys And Aliens) has been about the End of an Era; True Grit juxtaposed growing up with the death of the Old West; Django Unchained (technically a Southern) was set just years before Civil War erupted; this years The Salvation told a classical tale, but in its final scenes revealed the true narrative motivation was that most 20th Century of things, oil. Slow West, in this regard, is no different. Set in 1870, it too looks at the shifting times, but is so all-encompassing in its approach that it eclipses all but the Coens recent effort. Characters muse on the changing times and how all too quickly the present will become long-past history, although even the most righteous man cant quite grasp where the future will take them; the idea that the white man will be a constant invader, stealing and pillaging from natives, be they of America or the Moon, pervades above all else. These are the final days of a savage land where violence rules; love, and the civilisation it instils, are hidden just over the mesa ready to take over. The story is ostensibly Jay Cavendishs, Kodi Smit-McPhees Scottish aristocrat whos travelled continents to find his true love. He traipses through the land on an overburdened horse with his fantastical happy-ever-after seemingly within his reach, never fully seeing the brutality of the world hes entered; while bounty hunters plan to kill his girl, all he can imagine is them trying to steal her affections. Hes idealistic and confused. And, most of all, hes right. Jay is on a journey, but he is hardly the protagonist of the tale; as the recollective voiceover clues you in, the film is Michael Fassbender's, with his Silas the one making the internal discovery. The pair go through various semi-episodic adventures after the boy takes up the outlaws protection, and while the sequences are expanding the dangers of the tundra, the focus never really strays from their shifting awareness of the others world view. In a macro-sense it's a standard buddy road movie, but against the backdrop of the self-aware cultural shift it becomes something much more poignant. This is a movie with so much to its refreshingly slight running time thats its somewhat unbelievable this is John Maclean's feature debut. His direction is incredibly purposeful, with dreams, flashbacks and stories presented in novel, character-driven ways. What stands out most is the refined editing, in scenes of high tension jumping through carefully composed shots. Sometimes all this leads to moments that are a little obvious - characters occasionally speak in out-of-place philosophical phrases and at one point salt literally pours onto a wound - but theres so much subtextually lurking here that its totally forgivable. It would be a little too much to say the film is acting as a comment on Western movies, but, given the decline of the genre, theres something rather fitting to its humanist message. The Old West ended, and the loners who used to populate its desolate landscapes became the everyman. But, unlike the expectations of those who had already seen Native American culture decimated, it was not forgotten. Have you seen Slow West? What did you think? Share your thoughts on the film and the review down in the comments.
