BEFORE: I forgot to mention last time that when I got back from upstate, I started binge-watching the FX show "What We Do in the Shadows" on Hulu, to follow up the movie I watched on Halloween. There are just two seasons, 10 episodes each, so on the nights where I don't have a movie to watch I can get through five episodes, so in just a few days, I'm almost done. It's mostly the same gags as the movie, at least in Season 1, though they have a little more time to explore them, and it's different vampire characters, but they're essentially the same. There was one episode in Season 1 where the main actors from the movie appeared, plus Tilda Swinton (who played a vampire in "Only Lovers Left Alive") plus there are a bunch of other cameos in that ep and throughout the series. I'm enjoying it, and if there's a season 3 I can program my DVR to record that, now that I'm caught up.
But where do I go from here? There are only 6 more movies to watch in 2020, and 4 of them are earmarked for December. So I'll have a lot of free time on my hands - I thought I'd have another part-time job by now, but I'm not getting any callbacks for seasonal help. Do I move on to making my Christmas mix-tape (first-world problems, I know...) or catch up on organizing comic books (I'm constantly behind here) or re-play a favorite video-game? There's one last Marvel show on Netflix to watch, and it's "Iron Fist", before the Marvel shows on Disney Plus start - or I could pick another series like "Portlandia" or "Lost" to possibly finish before the pandemic ends. To be determined.
Nate Mooney carries over from "One for the Money", because the only other films on my list with Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan are romance-based, and the only other films with Anjelica Huston is a horror film, plus "Mr. North", which is a film that got added at the last minute - and that was going to be tomorrow's film, but then I found a way to add one more Christmas movie at the end, so something's got to go. Thankfully I can re-schedule "Mr. North" and today's film also happens to connect to the next film in line. These are the things I have to keep an eye on, it's sort of a "multiple out" that helps me make adjustments to the count at the last minute. Harry Dean Stanton is in "Mr. North", and I've got several films with him in them, so I can probably work it in next year. And a rare birthday shout-out to Kevin J. O'Connor, who turns 57 tomorrow on November 15. Sorry, I'm off by one day but I'm not delaying my review.
THE PLOT: After the end of the Civil War, a colonel hunts down a man with whom he has a grudge.
AFTER: When I think about modern Westerns, as distinguished from the Westerns of the 1950's, what I've noticed is that where it was once so easy to tell the heroes from the villains, the morals in the newer ones are a lot blurrier. Maybe films reflect the times they were made in, in addition to the times where the story is set. I think maybe the trend started in the 1960's and 70's where the emphasis was on violence, like the Sam Peckinpah films, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and so on. "Silverado" and "Unforgiven" clouded the moral universe a little further, and now with films like "Hostiles", "Jane Got a Gun" and "The Ballad of Lefty Brown", in many ways we can no longer tell who the right-thinking people are, especially because they no longer wear those white hats to identify themselves.
(Wikipedia says this trend is called "Revisionist Westerns", which sounds a little pejorative. The name suggests that filmmakers are imposing the morals and viewpoints of our modern times on to the setting of the 1860's and 1870's. This implies that it isn't any more "correct" than the films of the 1950's that did the same - and all we're really accomplishing is placating the current audience with films that appeal more to their sensibilities. So maybe we need to find a better name for this sub-genre? Then again, I think every genre is always going to be "revising" itself, at least on some level, otherwise studios are just going to keep making the same films, over and over. Aren't romance films, sci-fi films, and horror movies forced to keep coming up with new ideas, which by their very nature are revising the genre? TBD. Clearly more research on this point is required.)
"Seraphim Falls" starts in the middle of the story, and all we know is that a group of men is tracking another man through the Nevada mountains. Is the group a posse of lawmen hunting a fugitive criminal, or does the group have evil intent? It's unclear by design. Even knowing in advance that there's a grudge dating back to the Civil War isn't much help - which man was Union and which was Confederate? Does that even matter? I hate to phrase it like this, but couldn't there have been good and bad people on both sides? It might be too simplistic to assume that whoever fought for the North was the right-thinking one, and whichever one represents the South is misguided - that's the same kind of thinking that tore our country apart in the 1860's and still lingers today, though in a different form. We've just gone through another very divided time in the U.S., and it's not over yet - I shouldn't assume in this movie or in life that the people who live near me and share my ideology are "correct" and the people in the states further away who voted a different way are "wrong". If this keeps up, we're potentially headed for a sequel to the Civil War.
(I still have hope for America to come together, but it's going to take time, and effort, and part of the problem is that darned American spirit. We're a country of rebels, our ancestors threw off the shackles of British Imperialism, they dumped the tea in Boston harbor and drank beer instead, got very unruly and after that, it was one rebellion after another. The attitude that led to the Civil War sort of came from the same place, there have been Americans raging against the machine since day one, if you think about it. The 1960's protests, people protesting over not enough civil rights, others rioting AGAINST civil rights, it seems like Americans took their cues from that James Dean movie. What are we rebelling against? Well, what have you got? And now today the Trumpers are marching to protest the election results. Fundamentally, one some level, it's just who we are. When we're not happy, we make signs and march.
Unfortunately, we're never all on the same page. Even when Biden takes office, his efforts to mandate mask-wearing, distribute the vaccine methodically and create conditions to stop the spread are no doubt going to be met with disdain and protest from the people who will refuse to give up any individual freedoms for the greater good. Again, this reaction is part of the American spirit, but it's misguided and deadly in this case. I think what we need to do is label the COVID virus as the enemy, declare war on the invisible threat, and then try to unite the people. We don't all have to like the same things, but if we can HATE the same thing, we've got a shot. Look what America accomplished when we were united against Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia, or Islamic terrorists. In World War II Americans ran scrap drives, paper drives, we built freedom gardens and ran blackout drills - it sounds exhausting, but it all united the country toward a common goal. During the Cold War we worked to put men on the moon, a task that seemed impossible, but there was no way we were going to let the Soviets get there first! And then after 9/11 we gave up individual freedoms through the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, in order to have greater homeland security. Reminding Americans of these accomplishments could be the key to ending the pandemic. OK, rant over.)
Following the man in the forest, Gideon, sort of puts us on his side - he's injured, on the run, in desperate need of food and a horse, but he's resourceful enough to set traps and take out his pursuers, one by one. When the action shifts back to the posse that's pursuing Gideon, led by Carver, we get more of a ruthless vibe, since they don't seem to have much compassion, and they intimidate anyone they encounter who's given aid to Gideon. Still, until we get the whole back-story, we're still not 100% sure who we should be rooting for. Liam Neeson usually plays the lone vigilante hero fighting a group of villains, like in "Taken" or "The Commuter", or a dozen other films, so it's unusual to see him on the other side of the equation. (This film was released the year before "Taken", so it might predate the casting trend.). Pierce Brosnan's also noted for playing the resourceful hero, as in Remington Steele or James Bond, so is he playing to type here, or is something more surprising afoot? Again, we have to wait for the flashback to fill in the details of the backstory - this is the proper use of flashbacks, in my opinion, especially when the movie starts in the middle and learning the prior details later then sheds light on what we've already learned.
No spoilers here, ideally, but once we learn the true nature of what has gone before, we're set up for the conclusion, when both men have to cross the Nevada desert, one for the purposes of escape, and the other to continue his relentless quest. Whether either action is still justified at this point is up to the viewer, as each man has had ample opportunity to end things, but neither can quite bring himself to force a resolution. It's at this point that the film divulges into metaphor, and gets a bit mysterious. Just before entering the desert, each man encounters a Native American by a watering hole. Though not named in the film, the credits say he is named Charon, and that's the name of the ferryman in Greek mythology who would carry the souls of the dead across the river Styx to the underworld. It's possible this character is fulfilling a similar role here, and that the desert isn't really a desert at all, or this is all symbolism for their final encounter.
Once in the desert, both men also encounter Madame Louise, a con artist and snake-oil medicine salesman in a covered wagon. They never hear her approach, so the question becomes - is she really there? Does she represent the devil, since she makes deals with both men? (I don't think I'm wrong here, the IMDB says her wagon reads "Louise C. Fair" which sounds a bit like Lucifer). Is she some kind of mirage, or should we take her presence literally? This seems largely open to interpretation. Either way, it's a bit odd to introduce a character in the last few minutes of the film, she seems to be part of a desert deus ex machina no matter who or what she is. And maybe you'll find the ending unsatisfying, but I'm hard-pressed to think of another one that wouldn't be.
But I think the main take-away here is that some people were still fighting the Civil War for years after the actual conflict, even if they escaped out west, as far as they could go. In the same way, our currently divided country could be fighting these black-or-white, liberal-or-conservative battles for decades, nothing's really been "resolved" just because one party's in power and the other one isn't. If we don't start looking for common ground and stop treating every issue like it's all-or-nothing, right or wrong, we're all going to be lost wandering in the desert for a long time.
Also starring Liam Neeson (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Michael Wincott (last seen in "Ghost in the Shell"), Xander Berkeley (last seen in "Faster"), Ed Lauter (last seen in "The Artist"), Tom Noonan (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Kevin J. O'Connor (last seen in "Captive State"), John Robinson (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Anjelica Huston (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Angie Harmon (last heard in "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"), Robert Baker (last seen in "The Lone Ranger"), Wes Studi (last seen in "Hostiles"), Boots Southerland (ditto), Jimmi Simpson (last seen in "White House Down"), James Jordan (last seen in "Destroyer"), Shannon Zeller, Adon Cravens.
RATING: 6 out of 10 angry railroad workers
No comments:
Post a Comment