Beautifully The Homesman does - kind of - answer life's problems with the value of sheer vitality and gutsiness itself. Why? The Homesman leaves that question deliciously unanswered. She's born into a Western frontier world where she and everyone else believes and practices that "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Hard workers and decent people. The key heartbreaker is Hilary Swank's character of Miss Mary Bee Cuddy. It has a brilliant sense of time and place that tells the life stories of dozens of hard-enduring, long-suffering "forgotten men" - the women no less than the men. It's realism committed to a moral cause - criticism of the disenfranchised, the homeless, the people who cannot make it no matter how hard they try. The Homesman is not "entertainment" in the haha, shoot-'em-up Western sense. It has very tight, economic tale telling with no fat on the bone in which much is implied, historical accuracy hits its target by nuance, and the story itself is deeply respectful of an intelligent audience. The Homesman is an emotionally and powerful, idea-rich, almost humorless story - with an immense amount of humor. He's successfully created a fine work of "auteur cinema" (much as I personally think this form rarely exists). He's transferred his particular personality power to the story of The Homesman. I congratulate Tommy Lee Jones, for he has created a modern quiet masterpiece.Tommy Lee Jones has a wry, dry character - rich and deep as unwatered open plains of the Americas. Along with Eastwood's Unforgiven and Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, the West has moved into the sunset that the early films were anticipating. In Pete Perkins' care of the decaying body of Melquiades we find more respect for human beings than in any real life characters. And the notion that a man like Pete Perkins has long disapeared from the face of the earth, says so much about how a society has lost touch with humanity. The quiet acting, the vistas, the rights and wrongs. The way this movie is structured, in fragments, that come and go according to the characters feelings and ethics is keeps the storyline original. And the notion that a man It is so sad when a Wonderful film passes by almost unnoticed. It is so sad when a Wonderful film passes by almost unnoticed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |