Das Reich und die Herrlichkeit

I have been following this director for a while and I always liked his films but this time he has exceeded my expectations.

'The Claim' is like an ancient greek tragedy and Dillon is its' hero. Dillon is a man who goes West with his wife and new born daughter in order to find gold. In the process he sells his wife and his daughter in exchange for that gold. Years later his wife will come back to haunt him and Dillon comes to realize how empty his life has been, how irrelevant wealth can be to happiness. The story is so beautifully told and the last scene where the people of the new city of Lisboa prey on Dillon's gold is a metaphor or at least I would like it to be. I think Winterbottom wanted to show how the world will never change, how people will continue to go after that gold. Dillon came and went, but he didn't leave anything behind him. He achieved all those things, he was a pioneer he went out West, he was one of the people who built America but he didn't win his daughter's heart. And it makes one wonder, what was the point of his life. 'The Claim' is the story of America itself, an America that was built on greed, on the quest for new lands, new conquers and prosperity. Peter Mullan gives us an excellent performance, as well as Sarah Polley as the elegant young daughter and Milla Jovovich. Nastasia Kinsky has a rather insignificant role and Wes Bentley is disappointing. Overall, a very good film, a piece of art by Winterbottom and a story that you won't forget for a while.

Daniel Dillon owns much of the town of Kingdom Come, an area he obtained in exchange for a woman and a baby that travelled with him as a young man. Now he has the chance to become richer when Mr Dalglish arrives in town from the railroad company to scope the area for a possible railway route. At the same time, the woman he traded in exchange for the claim to the land all those years ago, Elena, returns with her daughter Hope to ask for money from Dillon.

Director Winterbottom is almost enough to draw me to watch a film, while the great potential in the cast brought me the rest of the way. The film is rather slow and deliberate but this is not a problem as it suits the atmosphere of the town and the film. However the various threads are perhaps too restrained and insular for the film's own good. It is clear that Winterbottom is mirroring the coldness of his surroundings in the hearts of his characters, but it makes it difficult to be involved in the emotions of the story. Also the fact that everything is quite polite and restrained doesn't quite fit with what I expect from a small frontier town based around mining and prostitution.

Likewise the characters were too mellow for the majority of the film - certainly Dillon does not seem like a man who has that in his past, he isn't anywhere near as complex as he should have been. This is not enough to ruin the film though; it still is interesting and reasonably involving as a collection of threads around the town. If only it had had more in the way of heart it would have been a much better film.

The cast are pretty good even though they are restricted by the material. Mullan is always worth watching and he does a reasonable job here. Jovovich is a very risky proposition sometimes but she stands out here mainly because her character allows her to show more of an emotional range. Kinski is wasted in a role that is key to the thrust of the film but is badly used and badly developed. Polley and Bentley are both very able actors but neither manage to convince; they are OK but their characters are not allowed to go where they needed to.

The story is interesting and, after seeing this, I will now try and read the original material it came from as I can see the potential that was quite missed by this version of it. The emotions of the story and the characters are not allowed to develop and it really robs the film of much of it's power. It looks great and feels very worthy but it is hard not to feel like something is missing. Well worth a look but it requires patience to enjoy.

One of the most remarkable adaptations of a literary work I've seen. Frank Cottrell Boyce completely changes Thomas Hardy's classic The Mayor of Casterbridge - and actually betters it lifting it from its original setting and tailoring it into a tale of the American West during the Gold Rush. Some of Hardy's holes hold (predictable) difficulty for many modern readers, but Boyce's western retelling fills them in and lends strong plausibility. (There's a tad too much "faint, fall ill and die" for me in the Hardy original). Some have complained that Boyce went too far - but this is a movie "based" on the book not claiming to be a faithful retelling.

Director Michael Winterbottom proves to have an enormous eye emerging in bold style at once stylized and natural. He brings us here images that, once seen, burn, linger and haunt forever be it a Victorian mansion hauled across the frozen plains or a horse's immolation as on fire it gallops across the screen.

Winterbottom's cast is a strong one - none remaining as they initially seem, each changing before our eyes. Kinski, first strong and bitter gives one of her most tender heartbreaking performances, Wes Bentley, likable and promising becomes petty and meddlesome. Milla Jovovich serves up, predictably, hearty and hot, yet more delicate than she would like to appear.

In all of this Peter Mullan's Daniel Dillon is the focus and the fulcrum by which the story hinges. He is never less than masterful. To see him early on nearly ravaged by youthful greed then watch him in age yearn for salvation that may never come or come too late, one cannot help but be riveted by his endeavor to make up by his plight and his attempt to change it.

The Claim is a remarkable film which, while it may take a bit of time to warm up to, burns its own unique reward in a way few modern Hollywood films can.

Michael Winterbottom's decision to construct the whole movie out of extreme telephoto shots - some of which have a pane of focus so shallow you start to wonder if it's really there at all - is more dogma than style. It places a heavy strain on the eyes which some viewers will mistake for tension in the story. (Michael Nyman's music, consisting of something like the "endless melody" which Wagner threatened to write but thankfully never did, likewise creates a tension which some viewers will mistakenly think belongs to the story. Actually, for once Nyman's music isn't that bad.) You have to admire the skill, and the art direction, like the choice of location, is beyond praise, but there's NO REASON AT ALL to make as peer at every single scene through a telescope, except perhaps that it's a shortcut (far too easy a shortcut) to stylistic unity.

It's surprising, towards the end, after all the cold, barely focused and rather absent storytelling, to find that the film packs a punch, after all. It came as a shock when I realised I'd actually been watching something GOOD. We really had been transported to another place (the journey was just a little slow); not having read Hardy's book, I found myself wondering how he could possibly have placed the story in an English setting.

I was also surprised to find myself touched. Some sad things happen at the end. I won't say what they are, and a synopsis of the plot probably wouldn't reveal what's sad about them, anyway.

Although set in a remote Sierra Nevada mining town in 1867, `The Claim' is really Thomas Hardy's classic novel, `The Mayor of Casterbridge' transported to American soil. The move is a good one.

The story concerns a wealthy miner named Daniel Dillon who practically runs the town of Kingdom Come as his own personal fiefdom. One fateful day three groups of people arrive into town: some railroad surveyors who offer the possibility that a train may soon be passing through the town, bringing with it people, wealth and prosperity; some prostitutes who plan to open up shop in this all-male community; and a sickly woman and her beautiful young daughter, who, it turns out, are the wife and daughter that Dillon sold for a bag of gold in his desperate youth – a decision he has lived to rue ever since.

Given this multi-character canvas, writer Frank Cottrell Boyce and director Michael Winterbottom take an almost painterly approach, allowing the drama to unfold at an unhurried pace, so that they can concentrate on the bleak snowy winter setting which ends up playing as great a role in the drama as the characters themselves. The most compelling of these is Dillon, a figure of almost tragic proportions, a man who seizes the chance to make amends for his heinous sin, yet who discovers, all too late, that, for some sins, there can be no redemption. Peter Mullan provides a superbly understated interpretation of a man whose acquisition of immense wealth and power only mask the loneliness and guilt he feels inside. Wes Bentley as the chief railroad surveyor, Nastassja Kinski as Dillon's ailing wife, Sarah Polley as their daughter and Milla Jovovich as Dillon's devoted mistress all turn in outstanding performances. Although none of these characters are afforded the same richness and depth that Dillon is, they still create a fascinating tapestry of conflicting dreams and emotions. For the concept of `dreams' is a core element of the story's pioneer theme. Here are a group of rugged individualists, all enduring great hardships on a wild outpost far away from the soothing amenities of civilized life – yet all dreaming of being a part of the building of a burgeoning new nation, of which the makeshift towns and railroad-building are truly indelible symbols.

And, indeed, in many ways, it is the images – of rugged mountains, of the relentlessly falling snow, of a house being pulled by horses across a snowy plain – that stick with us most profoundly. `The Claim' is a somber, moving and fascinating glimpse into our pioneer past.