Meeks Cutoff [Blu-ray]

This is a really interesting film. I'm glad that I read about it before I watched it so that I would know what to expect. If you do that, you will probably have a more enjoyable experience because you will be expecting it to be weird. While I agree that the film was slow and that the dialogue was difficult to hear (I, too, had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was being said), there are some really cool things about this film that I really liked. This is probably one of the most realistic films I have ever seen in terms of reflecting what life was really like for settlers during the time period depicted. I loved the beauty and sparseness of the scenery and I thought that the long periods of silence actually helped allow the viewer to experience the visual aspect of the film without having to constantly listen to people talk. I liked the conversations in complete darkness, I thought they were a really neat touch that added to the realism. Without the use of electric lights, complete darkness is what the characters would have experienced in real life and I like the way that was brought to the screen. It cut through the artificiality typically present in film by not making special allowances for the film viewers, like having lighting when it would normally be pitch black.

In addition, the justification for the full frame aspect ratio is one of the most creative that I have ever heard. I read somewhere, either in an interview or perhaps in the notes written on the DVD packaging, that Kelly Reichardt purposely did not use a widescreen format because she was trying to replicate for the viewer the vision restrictions imposed on the female characters in the film by the bonnets they had to wear. The bonnets restrict the wearer's vision from side to side and create a more box-like picture, so the full frame ratio is supposed to, literally, give the viewer the impression that they are seeing the world while wearing one of those bonnets. I also loved the ending, I love how it just ended abruptly and left the story completely unresolved. We never find out if the characters ever find water or if their Indian guide really knows where he is going or whether he is just as lost as they are. I love the final shot of Michelle Williams' face looking through the tree branches as she watches the Indian guide walk off into the distance, seemingly propelled by some otherworldly quality of which the other characters are ignorant. The culture/language clash between the white settlers and the Indian guide is also very well depicted - the Indian guide does not speak English and does not appear to make very many attempts to purposefully communicate with the settlers. He seems more interested in his own internal world than with anything the settlers are doing. Is he crazy and/or lost or is his unusual behavior only able to be understood in the context of his Native American culture, a culture of which the settlers and likely many viewers are largely ignorant? Interesting question to ponder.

This film is definitely not your conventional western nor conventional example of any other genre, for that matter. "Avant-garde" is pretty much the word here. If you can forgive some of its flaws and embrace the full-on realism and accuracy that the director appears to be going for, you might just enjoy this film. It starts out as a mystery, it remains a mystery throughout, and it ends as a mystery. Definitely one to leave you thinking for a long time afterward.

Meek's Cutoff is an ambitious film trapped by a budget too low to properly realize it. The film is based on an actual event that took place in 1845, although it bears little semblance to those events.

The plot, here goes;

Seven, count 'em, seven settlers (not including the fetus inside the pregnant lady) in three, count 'em, three wagons cross the forbidding Oregon desert trusting their lives to their incredibly hairy guide Stephan Meek (played by Bruce Greenwood). It's clear from the get-go that Meek has no clue as to where they are at, much less if they are heading in the right direction. But since any decision they make could be just as bad, they decide to keep following Cousin It...I mean, Meek until they run across one, count 'em, one Native American who may know the right way...or not.

On the plus side, the framing of the landscape, the sparse dialogue, and solid acting elevates this effort above the average "indie" fare. Lead by the really fine Michelle Williams (who bears a strong resemblance to Renee Zellweger), the rest of the cast follow admirably, especially the aforementioned Greenwood, Shirley Henderson (best known as "Moaning Myrtle" from the Harry Potter series), and Rod Rondeaux who plays the Native American in such a way that we have absolutely no clue what his intentions, if any, he has.

Indeed, the very subject matter of how people react in this particular type of situation is enough to generate a palatable tension as they press on into the wilderness. There is also a strong attention to the "details" of frontier life. The gathering of wood, the keeping of fires, the attention to the water supply that helps set the proper mood. Speaking as a amateur historian, there was nothing terribly out-of-place about the clothes, tools, and firearms we see on the screen (the flintlocks were certainly appropriate). I do question the all-metal handles on the buckets and perhaps the general style of the woman's clothing as being more post-Civil War. But even if I'm right, such things tend to get overlooked anyway and it certainly didn't stand in the way of my enjoyment of the film.

On the down side, the limited budget undercuts a great deal of that very tension. Settlers in 1845 didn't cross the street with only three wagons, much less the 1,500 miles to Oregon. But even putting that historical error aside, the party is so small that even if they had stuck to the trail and caught every break, it's almost impossible to see how they could make it. All it would take is some bad weather or running across the wrong type of folks (in effect, bandits) or sickness which would wipe them out. So given the odds, our band of intrepid heroes is doomed from the start and the film becomes a waiting game to see what unfortunate event will eventually do them in.

Also, one sub-plot of a child's discovery of gold is dropped almost as soon as it's brought up and the other characters' reaction to this claim, particularly Meek himself, is impossible to believe. Even if you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere, far from any known source of water, it would take only a few seconds on horseback for any of the characters to verify the child's story. Yet no one does a thing save for one settler who sets up a "marker" so flimsy that a gentle gust of wind would topple it over. And even though there was a reported "discovery" of gold made during the actual event in 1845 (something that has not been verified to this day), why include such a "non-event" in the film itself?

As for the ending, which has generated some controversy, all I can say is that it fits pretty well with what such a low budget film is capable of. So while I wasn't all that miffed, many in the theater I watched the film in were not so generous. Perhaps having invested so much, they were naturally disappointed when it didn't pay off in any direct way. At least the theater staff could be glad that no one thought to bring a bag full of vegetables along.

Frankly, the longer I watched this movie the more angry I became. First, Meek's wagon train consisted of some 200 wagons and about a thousand people! They had nearly 4,000 cattle/oxen with them! About the only accurate aspect of the movie was that they were almost always looking for water. [It takes LOT of water for that many people and livestock!] By the end of the movie, I actually got out a magnifying glass to see if someplace on the DVD cover it said it was one of a multiple-DVD set because it just stopped . . . no ending. I guess the producers ran out of money.

What most made me angry was the movie's depiction of the Indian. First of all, Stephen Meek (whose niece, Helen, died two years later from untreated measles during her captivity in the Whitman massacre) who had lived and traveled nearly twenty years in the Rocky Mountain areas certainly would have known sign language and how to get ideas across to Indians whose language he did not speak. It is true that the group met a lone Indian, a member of the Warm Springs tribe. But, he walked openly into their camp, was given food and then Meek asked how to get to the Dalles. The Indian agreed, for a blanket, to guide them on the 5-day trek. Along the way, they met more Warm Springs Indians, one of them being able to speak some English. They led them to the Deschutes River, where the tribe was fishing, and showed the emigrants where there was a place to cross the river (which took two week for all to get across). From everything I've read on it, the Indians they encountered showed every sign of friendliness, and did not deserve the way the movie's Meek and many of the others treated him.

In stark contrast with the Indian's help, as they neared the Dalles they sent a group to the Methodist mission there for help . . . . and were refused.