“Dead Don’t Hurt” offers a new perspective on Westerns, “Violent Nature” is not a true horror classic | Film

Dead delivers a unique portrait of courage

click to enlarge

Viggo Mortensen’s ModEuropean Summer Time The dead don’t hurt attempts to offer a different perspective on Western heroism by putting the female protagonist front and center and focusing on the unsung trials she and her brothers faced. Of course, the script still contains a fair number of genre cliches, but by including an additional point of view, the result is a richer, more introspective genre entry.

Mortensen, who also wrote the screenplay, uses a sliding plot that alternates scenes from the present with those from the past. Although this seems daunting at first, the result is a story that is much more emotional than the usual pulp fiction. Olson (Mortensen) has emigrated to America and built a good life for himself. He has settled in southern Nevada and owns a small house on the outskirts of the nearest town, but is a wandering spirit. As a result, he feels the urge to travel around, and during a stay in San Francisco he meets Vivienne (Vicky Krieps), a fiercely independent woman who suffers no fools. She immediately recognizes that they are kindred spirits and agrees to marry him.

When she first sees the modest, isolated house they will live in, however, she is not impressed. And just as they are settling into their daily lives, Olson tells her that he is enlisting in the Union Army, lured by a $100 signing bonus and a belief that the fight to abolish slavery is just. Left to her own devices, Vivienne is forced to eke out a living on her meager farm. In search of work, she heads to Elk Flats, where she finds a position at the local tavern. And while she is making ends meet, she catches the attention of Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), an unstable, violent young man whose father, Alfred (Garret Dillahunt), a powerful rancher, supports his son by making sure the local authorities look the other way when he goes too far, with Mayor Schiller (Danny Huston) helping her as a business partner.

The raw production design gives the story a foundation, but it’s the acting performances of the two leads that give the film heart. Mortensen and Krieps are masters in their subtle approach. Although both characters are repressed, they convey their thoughts and feelings in a quiet way, hinting at what’s on their minds rather than saying it. Their attraction to each other is obvious, as is their strength. It’s to Mortensen’s credit that he often fades into the background and lets Krieps shine, her Vivienne the embodiment of tenacity and strength, a performance in which little seems to be done but much is communicated.

The film stumbles a little when it focuses on the familiar. The obligatory villain is drawn far too crudely, while the solution to how to deal with him is obvious but never implemented. Gunfights ensue, chases ensue, and corruption is exposed. Mortensen knows he’s on familiar narrative terrain in these moments, and at least these scenes are sharply rendered and not overused. And while Dead The film leaves the viewer with a portrait of courage, comes from a non-traditional source and sheds light on those settlers who have too often been taken for granted and relegated to the background. In theaters.

Unique approach causes concern Nature

click to enlarge

After I was delightedChris Nash’s film was received with great success at various film festivals. In a violent nature is touted as an arthouse horror film, a film cut from the same cloth as The Blair Witch Project or The witch. Certainly the film contains elements that would justify this, as the filmmaker creates a truly unsettling sense of time and place that elevates it above similar works. Nature to be on par with the two classics mentioned above is a bit of a stretch. For all the obvious skill at work here, there are few radical reimaginings of the story. That being said, the film is most effective when Nash takes a subtle approach. It is only when he gives in to his most basic artistic instincts that he hampers this endeavor.

To his credit, Nash is quick to abandon genre cliches. A group of teenagers camping in the Canadian wilderness stumble upon a dilapidated structure in the woods, at the center of which is a metal basin from which hangs a gold chain and locket. Impulsively, one of them takes this tattered trinket, paving the way for the resurrection of an unstoppable evil. Only later, around a suitably spooky campfire, are we told the legend of Johnny, an oversized, “mentally challenged” teenager who was brutally killed by a group of local loggers… or so they thought. Apparently he was able to exact revenge on his killers, a massacre known to locals as the White Pines Massacre, before being led away and buried deep in the woods, his mother’s necklace hanging over his grave to keep him at bay.

More of the backstory is revealed later, but that’s typical of slasher films of this type – it’s loose and has little meaning. The only thing that matters in slasher films and to their fans is that there’s an unstoppable killer on the loose and grisly murders about to occur. That’s not the case at first, as Johnny’s first victim, who has the audacity to live in his family’s long-abandoned home, is portrayed with relative taste and restraint. Unfortunately, it won’t last, as Johnny’s work becomes increasingly heinous and disturbing. One of the murders is particularly outlandish and grotesque, but the online reaction to it from slasher fans is extremely concerning, their praise of this kind of cruelty is disturbing.

Yet Nash creates a seductive approach with two obvious, subtle choices. There is no music in the film, no thunderous, ironic score to underscore the violence or announce Johnny’s arrival. The result is jarring, because the absence of the expected aural cues creates a sense of realism that gets under your skin and only accentuates the brutality on display. This is coupled with Nash’s decision to keep the camera constantly behind Johnny, so that we share his perspective the entire time. This creates a sense of shared identity between killer and viewer, leading to a kind of uneasy sympathy for him.

These two very simple techniques make for a truly unsettling experience at times. Ironically, it is also boring at times. Running around with an undead all day and half the night is pretty monotonous. Nevertheless, Nash’s “less is more” approach proves effective in creating an eerie mood and a unique perspective. Had he taken the same approach to the film’s violence, then Nature could actually have been considered a work of art. In theaters.