Weekly Cinemeh

Hello, and welcome back to Weekly Cinemeh, where two friends watch movies and then talk about it. This week our theme was westerns. When most people think a movie is about the wild west of america in the 19th century, but I think it focuses more on frontier life rather than a specific era or location (firefly is a western in space). These movies are known for depicting a hard land where only hard people survive, so expect some depressing shit. On to the list!

1: The Homesman
The despair level starts high this week with The Homesman. This movie is essentially about the shittiest road trip. A woman named Mary Bee Cuddy (played by the awesome last name haver Hilary Swank) is tasked with taking three women back to civilization after going mad on the frontier. She enlists the help of a claim jumper she saved from hanging named George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) and the 5 of them travel east to bring these women back to their families. This movie is bleak as hell. A few weeks ago we watched "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" which was also bleak, but there was a catharsis of sorts, and a message about freedom. This movie's message didn't really happen for me. Shit gets bad, then worse, than better (but still bad), and then worse. The theme is very nihilistic. Life in the wilderness/frontier is depicted as hard enough to break people (even tough protagonists: more on that in a minute) and society is depicted as restrictive and morally corrupt. SPOILERS BEGIN: Briggs takes over as the protagonist 2/3 of the way through the movie, because Cuddy kills herself. She does this because of the crippling loneliness she feels as she cannot find a husband. Briggs survives the loneliness and harshness of nature because he has nothing to tie him down. He doesn't hold to social norms and has no expectations of what he should or shouldn't do. In this way he doesn't fall into despair, he just does what he needs to do to survive. In the ending few scenes of the movie he tries to stay in society for a little but is pushed away for not being the type of person people expect him to be. In the end he leaves to go put a tombstone on Cuddy's grave, though it gets kicked overboard by a Ferry worker. The movie ends with him on a raft, sailing away from the city dancing and singing. He is truly free. :SPOILERS END. Its a good movie that I didn't like at first because of a message that appeared to be "people are fucking terrible" and I thought that this was a bit harsh, but after thinking about the movie for a while I think I really liked it. The acting is great and Swank does a fantastic job of playing a person who is struggling greatly with an emotional burden. I am glad that this movie took the time to show that it wasn't all gunmen and greedy prospectors out west. There were also people who were trying to make a living, some of them women (who are woefully under represented in westerns). Watch it and see what you can get out of it.

Eshi: Brian and I did rounds on this movie for hours. It is indeed, bleak as fuck. It is also kind of beautiful in its bleakness. Tommy Lee's character is free in his despair in a way that most of us could never be in joy. His life is fucking terrible, spent largely barely escaping death and dismemberment, and yet he perseveres through a progression of apathy, empathy and booze. Nothing really gets "better" in this movie, people just carry on. The cinematography is very emotive and the acting is engaging. The Homesman is great at illustrating how the good thing, the right thing, and the smart thing are often farther apart than we want to believe. I wouldn't recommend a second watching, but it definitely deserves a look.

2: The Dark Valley
This movie was a German western about a photographer (the old time-y kind with the giant camera and everything) from America stopping in a small village in the Alps for the winter to take some pictures of the valley. Also revenge. This movie is dark and beautiful. The landscapes are amazing and provide a tranquil backdrop to the violence that erupts later in the film. The movie does the slow burn really well. You know from the looks people give each other and the general tension in the town that shit is going to go down, but it keeps making you wait. The acting was good, and the violence was brutal. The music turning into weird German folk techno during one fight scene was a bit strange but didn't take away from the moment, it was just odd. Its a good movie, give it a shot.

Eshi: I really enjoyed this film. Dude comes into this town, hangs out for a while and then just starts getting his justice all over the place. There is a deep vindication to the violence in The Dark Valley, even if the protagonist is kinda stupid from time to time. To quote Walter from the edited for TV version of the Big Lebowski, "This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps."

3: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
I have loved this movie since I saw it when I was a kid, and when we were doing a western week this immediately jumped to mind. Eshi having never seen it cemented it as a movie to watch. This movie is about 3 people rushing to find a huge cache of money hidden somewhere in the west. Its a good movie, but not flawless. There are several scenes that run a little long and don't need to be there. In an attempt to show that war is shitty there are several scenes showing how the civil war fucked with people and how both sides got a little fucked. These scenes didn't really add to the movie, they just offered a way of showing how the bad guy was bad and how the good guy was merciful. Its a fun movie, and its good at showing why Clint Eastwood was a legend as a tough guy type actor. Eli Wallach is also fun to watch as the foil Tuco (The Ugly). The music in the movie is also great. I would be willing to bet that if you think of music from a western you are thinking of the music from this movie.

Eshi: This film brought thirty years of random film references into clarity for me. I've absorbed  a pretty fair amount of this movie from the Zeitgeist and the occasional wonderful Asian Homage, but actually watching it is a different thing. Before seeing this, I actually really didn't like Clint Eastwood, I mean, I still kinda don't but he's  really good as Blondie. GBU is very much worth the watch, just don't be afraid to have your thumb on the fast forward button.