Has anyone seen this film? Mr Cherys recorded it and we watched it last night. It was extraordinary. I loved it and can't stop thinking about it. Would love to discuss it with someone as it used narrative in a way I've never seen before on film. The ending is so surprising and yet it works brilliantly. Like leaving readers with absolutely all the clues to a puzzle but not a single steer for the answer.

I saw it a few months ago in the cinema, and thought it was stunning. Also in how sparingly it used dialogue, for a film which isn't obviously An Action Movie, IYSWIM. I did want to see it again, to see if I could pick up more clues as to what the outcome was going to be.

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Isn't it Meek's Cutoff, though? I called it Meeks Crossing several times too - which maybe says something in itself...

Me! Me! I saw it on the big screen. Such a feminist view. With all the men's dialogue about what they should do going on and the women discussing it in the background, and no one taking any notice of them. And loading that gun. It took forever! Whicj it would. And Michelle Williams. Oh I loved this film! First feminist Western.

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A Cutoff is just a crossing.

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Except, I think the women were talking in the foreground with their backs away from the camera, discussing the men's plans which were "obviously" more important than their views in the foreground. It's a long time since I saw this and I am sure my memory has served me badly but I do remember being stunned by the view of the camera.

Yes, a properly feminist Western...

A Cutoff is just a crossing.

Yes, but the words have such different flavours.

Yup, saw it when it was in the cinema. I thought it was beautiful, wonderfully atmospheric and suspenseful, but wondered if the ending was surprising or a *bit* of a cop-out (always a fine line!)

But yes, a really interesting bit of narrative - particularly as the whole thing is left hanging in medias res - and there were some great performances.

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First feminist Western.

Surely that's got to be True Grit (the original, I mean)?..

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Didn't you think there was something rather Picnic At Hanging Rock about it, too? The whole women-in-the-wilderness thing; the disconnect between Western civilization and 'native' wisdom; the ambiguity and spareness and unresolved ending?..

Cherys, if you liked this film then see if you can get hold of Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" - about a girl (Michelle Williams again) and her dog living rough.

Yes, I guess I forget about "True Grit" though I was thinking more of the female gaze of the camera in Meek's Cutoff. I think it was more conceptually feminist whereas True Grit just had a plucky heroine, of which there have been many in literature and on film.

I want to see this film again now!

I liked the ending - or rather, I believed in it.

Yes, I was thinking of 'feminist' as female eye and sensibility in the conceiving and making of the story - not just feminist as in plenty of self-determining women...

Not a remotely feminist film (I actually can't recall a single female character in it) - but if you're after another unexpected Western I'd highly, highly recommend 'There Will Be Blood'. You've got to hang on for the first half hour or so (during which there's not a word of diaolgue), but boy is it good. Another brilliant study in atmosphere and subtext, with possibly the greatest revenge scene ever filmed.

And it's based on a short story by O. Henry, which can only be a good thing!

Cutoff is better than Crossing I agree.

Trilby, after getting over the initial huh? that the film stopped rather than ended, I thought its cut off point was brilliant. It made every single detail so relevant: the tree, the wall paintings, the sick man, the pregnancy, the child, the no-water, the indian now carrying blanket, frying pan and sewing basket (helping himself as he leads them to their death, or massively underpaid for saving their lives?)

I want to see it again.

I'd definitely have to watch the film again before commenting (it's been over a year since I saw it).

But I do remember enjoying more than my husband did; for him, the ending was a tease, whereas I was (just about) able to appreciate it as a finely wrought suggestion.

It was definitely interesting viewing from the perspective of someone who spent four years in primary school in the States, where the Orgeon Trail is still taught as a major part of that country's national mythology (happy memories of hours spent trying to kill off every member of the wagon as gruseomely as possible in the OT computer game - ten points for typhoid! twelve for drowning while attempting to ford the river! fifteen for snakebite!). In that regard, the fact that the director felt confident enough in her abilities *not* to provide a resolution - to dwell on the journey, rather than the destination - undoubtedly made for refreshing viewing...

I didn't like There Will Be Blood very much. I thought it was a big Oscar film with Best Actor stamped all over Daniel Day Lewis's role.
I just googled the film title because I couldn't remember Daniel D-L's name and it says that the film is loosely based on the book "Oil" by Upton SInclair, not O.Henry, Trilby.

My bad. But Upton Sinclair is almost as good.

Did you really think it was a 'big Oscar film', Jem? I thought it was far too spiky and drawn out to be dismissed on that basis. Though it is, admittedly, extremely 'male'...

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Actually, the stand-out performance for me wasn't DDL but Paul Dano (Is that his name? The chap from Little Miss Sunshine, anyway), who played the manic boy-preacher...

I thought so, yes. Not so much the film but the role D D-L played. I agree the boy-preacher was very good. Yes, it was too "male" for me, I'm afraid. I was looking at the Oscar films for that year and saw "Juno" and "Michael Clayton" and "No Country For Old Men" were up. I preferred all these films to TWBB.

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No Country won that year but TWBB was nominated in 8 categories apparently.

No Country for Old Men was absolutely brilliant, I agree. So freaking dark!

And Juno was sweet, too. Though a bit clever-clever at times, I thought, in its determination not to be saccharine. Not great cinema on the scale of TWWB, imho...

I loved Juno at the time - I was so glad that she didn't keep the baby! I must admit I was holding my breath. And I love Alison Janner - CJ, in The West Wing!