Auf dem Weg nach Oregon

I have many friends who don't like most of the high tech movies that involve car races, shoot um ups, special effects & overall fast pace.

well, here is a movie for you! Slow & easy it is You take a small group of travelers in 3 covered wagons & experience what it was like 150+ years ago for the folks who settled the rugged and undeveloped areas of our country.

Wandering travelers and dependent on a guide who is "lost" and then a captured Indian who is questionable in where he leads. No real communication with the language barrier.

It wasn't pretty. But they did not know much different and had the simpler life in every way imaginable. For those who long for the "good old days" I think this exemplifies that the nostalgic images lack reality At the end we don't know if the party survived, if a baby was born and lived, if the Indian took pity (if it was an ambush) on the brave woman who defended and protected him.

I can envision a sequel with the story narrated by the young boy in the party as an adult looking back. The photography is very rich and tells a story of its own. The music is bold and beautiful. The acting is very well done & well cast.

In a way I was disappointed after I saw it but then in reflection decided I was very amazed with what was conveyed and the real impact it had on me. Not a movie for everyone but a well done work of art

It is telling that Reichardt chose to shoot this film in Academy ratio. Right away we know this will not be a romantic image of the Old West, with breathtaking, expansive vistas (although the cinematography is lovely in its own way). Instead, we are constricted, claustrophobic, uncertain of what lies just beyond our limited field of vision. It is a film of quiet desperation, hard-scrabble survival in painstaking detail, and growing mistrust. In some ways it evokes the horror genre, perhaps something like a subdued BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, as the severity of the situation deepens and doubt takes hold. The film manages a sense of gritty realism without resorting to overstating the harsh conditions for dramatic effect. The travelers aren't stumbling around filthy and bloody, they maintain a semblance of civility even as the promise of civilization seems more and more doubtful. The ending will no doubt frustrate many, but didn't bother me one bit.

As for the cast, Michelle Williams impresses me again with her thoughtful restraint, and I'm always pleased to see Shirley Henderson. Greenwood does well with a part that could easily have called too much attention to itself, and for once I didn't hate Paul Dano. The score is wonderful, as haunting and sparse as the landscape. I adored WENDY AND LUCY, and quite liked OLD JOY (in fact, that film seems better in hindsight than I gave it credit for). Reichardt is emerging as one of American cinema's most distinctive and worthwhile voices. I look forward to her next endeavor.

It is interesting reading all of these angry people here, who seem to appreciate having seen an amazing film but don't understand why it does not have a 'three act structure' or Hero's journey. If you are a fan of early Michael Haneke or even Tarkovsky (to a lesser extent), then you will like this film. It is a very gentle observational piece which takes its time to even let you hear human voices. It wants you to feel the wind on the scrub desert or to hear the bubbling of the river.

To make a film like that, especially in America where the audience is weened on cleanly prepared stories that have beginnings, middles and ends, is brave, stubborn and amazingly lucky that Kelly Reichardt was able to raise the money to make it.

Fantastic. Unique, Beautiful.

But just do not expect to be 'told' what happens next, because nothing massively important actually does. Just like life really.

"Is he ignorant, or is he just plain evil?" Three families decide to start a new life in 1845 Oregon. They hire master guide Meek (Greenwood) to lead them along the Oregon Trail. When a shortcut turns out to become dangerous Emily (Williams) begins to openly question his abilities. This is one of the rare westerns that have been released in the last 10 years. A good one, almost a great one. While this movie does have it's slow moments the scenery and acting (an all star cast) more then make up for it. This is one of the independent movies that I talk about when i say that big budget movies that are crap get more publicity then the little ones that need it, and are 1,000,000 times better. This movie also has two of my favorite underrated actors in it, Bruce Greenwood (in an Oscar caliber role) and Will Patton. This is one great movie. Overall, not only one of the best westerns in the last 10 years, but one of the best movies period. Watch this, it's awesome. I give it an A-

Would I watch again? - Probably

Kelly Reichardt's western 'Meek's Cutoff' is dour, unmelodramatic, realistic, claustrophobic, and ultimately unresolved. These qualities are (along with its striking use of the semi-desert of eastern Oregon) the film's strengths; but ultimately, also its weaknesses. While there's atmosphere, not a lot happens; and while the film is pleasingly un-glib, there's not too much characterisation either: the braggart explorer, the Puritan settlers, the mysterious native, none of the characters go far beyond stereotype, even if their micro-behaviour is impressively restrained and convincing. As a piece of recreated history, the film has merits: but as dramatic entertainment, it's sadly guilty of not even trying.