Meek’s Cutoff is the latest offering from auteur Kelly Reichardt who, despite only having made a clutch of features, is renowned for her minimalism and underdog aesthetic. Having impressed with a depiction of a morphing male friendship (Old Joy) and a study of the disposed American (Wendy and Lucy), in Meek’s Cutoff she reunites with Michelle Williams in a further bid to give voice to the voiceless.
Meek’s Cutoff is a revisionist western, revised so much it’s barely a western at all. Not only is the role of the Native American reevaluated, but also that of the white woman. Reichardt draws parallels between them, uniting the Others in a shared distrust of the white male, despite their inability to verbally communicate.
In fact, it feels more like a Storyville doc than a western. The perpetual squeak of rusty wagon wheels drowns out the score; the all-natural light and mix of Oregon dirt and sweat that adorns the actors’ faces whisper vérité. Then there’s the homely sampler title card and credits which underline the handmade authentic feel.
Although Meek’s Cutoff is based on a real historical event and place, Reichardt uses the hellish journey more as a MacGuffin to provoke thoughts about how the west was really won and how far society has come since it was.
The plot is as follows: Three well-meaning couples and a child are hoodwinked into following self-professed trailblazer Stephen Meek into what they believe is a cutoff (short cut) through the Oregon Trail. Evidently Meek impressed the families with tall tales of his knowledge of the inhospitable desert. But when he continues to lead them into vast, hostile territory where water is scarce to non-existent, doubt sets in.
It’s only when Meek captures a lone Native American that the exhausted group really starts to question their leader. Meek is all for killing the captive, perhaps to prove himself. But the increasingly confident Mrs Emily Tetherow (Williams) uses logic to stay his execution. She thinks he will eventually lead them to water and wins the agreement of the rabble – no small feat ‘for a woman’.
Arguably a ‘feminist western’, the camera lingers on the women’s tired faces or their nimble fingers stitching or knitting. The men receive fewer close-ups but get more words, grouping off frequently to hear Meek’s advice. The women hang back asking each other what the men are saying, or trail the wagon as the men lead them further into the American abyss.
Birds Eye View don’t get enough credit for championing ‘difficult’ films such as this. Meek’s Cutoff is defiantly uncommerical but further proof of the director’s considerable ambition to carve her own niche in the American indie landscape. It’s reassuring to know that this distinct filmmaker will receive support even as cinema chains across the country will ignore her.
Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011 – Meek’s Cutoff (text) by Georgie Hobbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
