☆"You don't know much about women, do you, Stephen Meek?"☆

March to the West -- film #30 of 31

Most of the Westerns I've watched this month fall within the same time span, probably around 1870 to 1890. Sure, that's your classic period for the genre. But it's good to spice things up and move backwards a bit, to prewar America of the mid-1840s, the days of the Oregon Trail and the pioneers who moved westward to new opportunities. That's the setting for Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff, another slow burn for the acclaimed director that brings a grim realism to a mythologized journey.

Long into their trip and leading to the Oregon High Desert, a group of pioneers have put their trust in their guide Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), but unfortunately it soon becomes clear that this may have been a mistake. Slowly, the hopeful settlers -- Soloman (Will Patton) and Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams), William (Neal Huff) and Glory White (Shirley Henderson), and Thomas (Paul Dano) and Millie Gately (Zoe Kazan) -- trudge on through a river and into a much more arid plain, devoid of water and lacking in resources. Now, taking a cutoff which would later bear his name, Meek has led the covered wagons three weeks behind schedule with supplies dwindling. The husbands huddle while the wives look on, unsure if the ever-optimistic and probable huckster Meek is leading them to death, until perhaps their fortunes turn when they capture a lone Cayuse tribe Native (Ron Rondeaux). Emily stands above the rest to protect him, as the men are ready to kill the Indian, as she knows he may be their only hope to make it out alive.

There's a lot going on in this slow film, one with power dynamics of gender and race, within the context of events that are based in fact. It would be fair to think, looking at the poster, that Meek's Cutoff is some female-fronted Western shoot-em-up. Nope. But the focus on the women is accurate, as Reichardt lets us be a third party observer with a more clear look at the wives on the Trail and how they come to tame the untamed frontier.

It's no accident, for example, that Reichardt and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt frame the film in the "academy ratio" -- far different than the usual Western which we're used to seeing in stretched out widescreen -- such that the square-like boundaries mimic the bonnets perpetually fastened to these pioneer ladies. That's how they see, too.

Reichardt's films have a deliberate pace. This is no action thriller. Silly reviews all over this site lament it as a film "where nothing happens." I'ma bet those people aren't real big Béla Tarr or Andrei Tarkovsky fans. No this isn't an existential dive of pioneer ennui, but does take a stark turn with the discovery of the Cayuse man who is either their hope or their destruction. And while the dialogue does make their emotions clear, screenwriter Jonathan Raymond -- who's worked on a half-dozen of Reichardt's films -- shows us as Josh Larsen wrote a "holistic" view of the world, as he continues:

Notice the movie centers on one of the couples, not one of the men. A crucial distinction of Meek’s Cutoff is its egalitarian nature. Because Reichardt is a woman, some have labeled it as a feminist Western….But in reality it’s beyond – and better – than that… [a] specific time and place as it was experienced by everyone who was there. Yes, men have their traditional roles and women have theirs, but the point is they both have roles to play and are given the opportunity to play them.

There's a narrative patience here that must be met with contemplation, but there's a reward of a special kind of tension and intensity that comes without the thrills of a horseback chase or saloon gunfight. And like every Kelly Reichardt movie, Meek's Cutoff may not be perfect and it may demand more from a viewer than a typical Western, but her dark minimalism combined with gorgeous shots of the arid West are more than worth your time.

Friend who wrote a better review than me: MPieper.

Added to Kelly Reichardt ranked.
Removed from What's on My DVR?