{"id":3812,"date":"2015-05-21T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T22:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3812"},"modified":"2015-05-21T15:29:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T22:29:16","slug":"review-slow-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3812","title":{"rendered":"Review: SLOW WEST"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u201cSlow West\u201d is different and wonderfully so. Few Westerns are made these days. I remember years ago when I spoke with Dennis Quaid at an event for his film \u201cThe Rookie,\u201d I asked him about \u201cThe Long Riders\u201d and whether he\u2019d consider doing more Westerns. He said something to the effect that no one makes them anymore, they just don\u2019t sell.<\/p>\n

This is one reason why \u201cSlow West\u201d is so unique. It\u2019s the kind of revisionist Western that reached its peak in the 1970s with films like \u201cLittle Big Man,\u201d \u201cBad Company,\u201d \u201cMcCabe & Mrs. Miller,\u201d and many others. In the last few years, save for art house attempts like \u201cMeek\u2019s Cutoff\u201d and the ultimate low budget throwback \u201cThe Scarlet Worm,\u201d the modern Western just isn\u2019t being made. And \u201cSlow West,\u201d a timeless almost perfect example of the modern Western, is the kind of film I\u2019d like to see more frequently.<\/p>\n

The story is about 16-year-old Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-Phee) who is traveling across the 19th Century American frontier in an effort to find his true love Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). Along the way, Jay comes to employ gun-fighter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) as his guide and protector. The two strike an uneven friendship as they navigate their way to the same destination each for much different purposes.<\/p>\n

At one point, they cross a dangerous bounty hunter named Payne (Ben Mendelsohn). Their first encounter with Payne is the kind of trippy sequence that marked the best of the 1970s revisionist Westerns. And the modern touches are subtly abound in \u201cSlow West\u201d with scenes involving immigrants and allusions to slavery and Native Americans lightly sprinkled into the story. Things unfold with a casual calm that merely masks the simmering potential violence that is likely to explode at any one moment.<\/p>\n

Writer\/director John Maclean really understands what makes the modern Western work, and even pays homage to many of the genre\u2019s classics. One scene is unmistakably Leone as a gunman sets up outside a farmhouse in a beautiful field. The writing is sharp with sparse dialogue, mysterious flashbacks, and a strong female presence. He is working within the Western but telling a story that exists today. It is refreshing.<\/p>\n

The cinematography from DP Robbie Ryan (\u201cFish Tank\u201d) is especially impressive particularly since the film was, according to IMDB, shot on the Canon 1DC. Because my wife and I shoot on so many different cameras, seeing a film that looks this good with this level of cast on a camera that is essentially a large DSLR is exciting. The image is really clean, but does not ever seem electronic or alien, rather there is an organic quality to it. But since the image is so clean, the modern tone of the film is enhanced. This is all part of the construction digital film look rather than the cinema film emulation approach that I often pursue. It is a risky visual scope, but it works very well in \u201cSlow West.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSlow West\u201d is the modern Western that we have been sorely lacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The return of the modern Western?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3816,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions\/3816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}