Meek’s Cutoff (2010)

Directed by: Kelly Reichardt

A party of settlers (six adults, one child, assorted livestock) take their wagons across 1840s Oregon, led by their eponymous guide, Stephen Meek.  We first see them making their way across a river, and this seems like a hardship – the three women are shown wading waist-deep through the water, with bundles held precariously on their heads.  But this is the last time they see fresh water in this movie and, as one type of barren landscape gives way to another, we recall the river as a cool, live-giving dream.  As the settlers lose trust in Meek, suspecting he may be deliberately leading them into the wilderness, a native American appears, is captured and then becomes some kind of alternative guide.  But will he prove to be any more reliable than Meek?

There’s a moment some way into Meek’s Cutoff when Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams), walking through scrubland in search of firewood, finds herself staring at the moccasined feet of The Indian, played by Rod Rondeaux.  In other circumstances, this would be a candidate for Roger Ebert’s list of movie clichés, as a variation on the Back Seat Inviso Syndrome: you can’t get to within two metres of a fully-grown man without noticing that he’s there.

But this movie is all about limited perspectives: everything is constrained, curtailed, cut-off.  We may be in the American West at a time when it was even less inhabited than we are used to seeing it, but there are no sweeping landscapes here.  These are people with little knowledge, few tools and limited time.  If the water runs out, so will their luck.  The message is driven home from the start, as it becomes clear that this film was shot in Academy (4:3) ratio.  It feels odd by any standard, and doubly so for a western.  But it reinforces the claustrophobic, ominous mood of the film, and the sense of powerlessness of the characters.  When Emily needs to warn the men of the arrival of the Indian, she fires a first shot from her already-loaded weapon – and then we wait an agonising age as she primes, loads and fires her musket for a second time.

Religion and faith are important aspects of the lives of these people, but they are in the background – informing and supporting our understanding of they way they behave, rather than being inserted as explicit plot elements.

Meek’s Cutoff has few characters, little dialogue and was clearly made on a low-budget.  But that is not a pejorative statement: the film’s production values seem entirely appropriate, and it has few rough edges (there is just a hint of western cliché about the brief three-way standoff between Meek, Emily Tetherow and the Indian).  The cast are all excellent, especially Will Patton and Shirley Henderson.  Its sparse, dessicated style won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s a thoughtful, well-made movie.