2017’s “Wind River”, written and directed by Taylor Sheridan.
Starring Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Gil
Birmingham, Kelsey Asbille, Jon Bernthal, and Julia Jones.
What is it about?
Renner stars as a Fish and Wildlife agent, still coping with
his own tragedy, who lives on the Wyoming Wind River reservation. While out
hunting for predators who feed on livestock, Renner discovers a young
indigenous woman who was sexually assaulted and then froze to death in the
winter landscape. The FBI sends in a solo agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to
investigate the crime. Completely unprepared for both the frozen tundra and the
dynamics of the reserve, Olsen gets a crash course in multigenerational trauma
and it’s effects. Using local indigenous sheriff (the always reliable Graham
Greene) and Renner as guides to both the terrain and the political realties of
the traumatized participants and sometimes violent citizens, will Olsen get to
the bottom of the crime without needing to sing her own death song?
Why is it worth seeing?
Taylor Sheridan, after his promising writing works of
“Sicario” (my #2 of 2015) and “Hell or High Water” (my #9 of 2016), takes on
directing duties to go with his screenplay. While he doesn’t (yet) have the
directing mojo of Denis Villeneuve or David Mackenzie, he does create some lovely
stark imagery of the frozen tundra not seen since the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” or
Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan”. As in his previous movies, Sheridan does bring
back more conversation about systemic oppression and imbalance, and this film is
his attempt to highlight the plight of murdered Indigenous women across North
America, victims who simply are disregarded by the system.
Sheridan wisely avoids an issue prevalent in mainstream
movies depicting indigenous characters’ situations: that of the white saviour
(1990’s Best Picture Winner in particular). While neither character of Renner’s
or Olsen’s are indigenous, Renner’s had a daughter with a reserve member and
has clearly lived there for a while, understanding the raw deal given to his neighbours,
and their quiet but vulnerable resilience. Olsen herself doubles as a character
out to investigate a crime, and as witness for the audience to the horrific
multi-generational oppression that has befallen first nations peoples. Mired in bureaucratic
nightmare questions such as whatever a woman’s death is a homicide or merely death
of natural causes, she meets individuals who feel hurting others to go to jail
is the current version of a rite of passage, while she learns about a system
that has left people to fend for themselves.
As the fish out of water FBI agent who’s never been to
Wyoming or a reserve, Olsen is amazing as someone who knows that she is out of
her league, relies on others to educate her, and dives straight into ill
meaning danger. Renner is remarkable, as the man of few words who has seen
great pain and seeks justice on some level regardless of due process or whom it
is for. And Gil Birmingham is remarkable as a grieving parent who watches what
he loves be destroyed. Powered by a singeing score by Nick Cave and Warren
Ellis, there are great performances abound.
While “WR” at times operates as a surface deep gaze into it’s
subject matter, it’s attempts to delve into the realities of indigenous
experiences through the guise of a tough winter noir whodunit are refreshing. A
message more important then the medium, the more you try to ignore the
realities of ignorant recklessness and systemic oppression, the more the wind
brings it back in your face.
No comments:
Post a Comment