More from the movie corner of Graziella: Meek’s Cutoff
After three weeks with Brazilian cinema, we return home with the rare gem of a recent Western directed by a woman. Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff (2011) is a mysterious and superbly calibrated film about three 19th-century pioneer families struggling along the desolate Oregon trail. Shot in Reichardt’s typical observational style of long takes and a minimal soundtrack, Meek’s Cutoff displays a subdued color palette determined by the parched landscape and the grim faces of those traveling across it. It is a world of tough browns and ochres, pale greys; the blue of the sky is bleached out with glare and haze. Indeed, Reichardt devises a strategy that suggests the distance and isolation of these travelers, and the film itself shimmers on the brink of some kind of mass hallucination-a pointed allegory whose cryptic ending may well apply to us as it did those pioneers in 1845. If you, like virtually everyone else, are used to the classic, mythical views of the famous Manifest Destiny and its wagon trains to the West, do yourself a favor and make sure you do not miss Meek’s Cutoff.
Watch Meek’s Cutoff on Kanopy HERE.
