"Death is nothing to us, because when we are here, it is not, and when it is, we are no longer here."

(Epicurus)

The beginning starts from the end: a puzzle-like reconstruction.

We are in 1860 in the far western coast of the United States.

Olsen, a Danish immigrant, lives in a wooden house in the middle of nowhere with a child.

Vivienne, a French-Canadian, is being courted by a wealthy, verbose Irishman who lives surrounded by art, beauty, and elegance, but one evening she gets up and leaves.

She goes to the market to buy fish and meets Olsen: they start living together.

They love each other, experiencing a unique kind of love for their time and place: both of them are individuals who defy the usual stereotypes. She doesn’t want to marry; she wants to work to become economically independent, is determined, and knows exactly what she doesn’t want.

There’s a corrupt mayor in town who shares the profits of an alcohol, gambling, and prostitution establishment with Jeffries, a powerful landowner who has a disabled son and another one who is hard to handle: Weston, who knows only the language of violence. A murderer, rapist, and violent bully, he kills as easily as he drinks alcohol.

Although Olsen has already lost one wife, who left him because he enlisted in the army, he persists in his conviction and enlists again to fight in the Civil War.

Many things will happen over these years while she receives seven letters, and he, due to his constant movements, only one.

His return will be traumatic, and the developments overwhelming and dramatic.

If the dead do not suffer, the living are exposed to injustice, inequality, illness, violence, and the tragedy of existence.

The responsibility of a child, revenge as a necessity to reclaim one's integrity, refusing to endure corruption by handing back the sheriff's star, and not responding to constant provocations.

An epic centered around a woman, masterfully portrayed by a steadfast identity, especially in the face of brutality and the oppression of male domination.

Vivienne and Olsen are strangers but, more importantly, different, not only because their origins lie elsewhere but also because they possess a strong moral code, a calm sensitivity, and are outside the conventions and stereotypes of gender, roles, and relationships.

An unconventional western, a puzzle-like screenplay: the story unfolds, loops back, resumes, and moves forward and backward; the direction maneuvers the characters like only an expert chess player in cinema can.

After the western Brimstone, it is difficult to revisit the theme of male violence against women, oppression, and domination, and although here, compared to the former, the cruelty is absolutely restrained, the themes address the same concepts with grace and elegance, while not neglecting any reference to individual emancipation, a fundamental premise for the liberated construction of an adult love.

"Pain and hate and love and joy and war exist because we want them. And we want everything to be so dramatic to prepare us for the final test that awaits us: to face death."

(C. Palahniuk)

18-Oct-2024 by Beatrice