Meek's Cutoff

A film set on the Oregon Trail in 1845. Three families are travelling west with a wagon train. Three wagons, a few oxen, a few barrels of water. Their guide is Meek. A long-bearded, talkative man; he said he knew a shortcut and they followed him. Now they are lost. They have been walking for five weeks, cannot find water, and Meek does not know where they are. Nobody says so out loud. One day they see a native man. They capture him and argue about what to do. Meek wants to kill him. Emily objects; she thinks he can find water. From there the film becomes a story about trust. They follow him and nobody understands where he is going. He speaks but nobody knows his language. The narrative gives no subtitles for what he says; the audience is left as ignorant as the train. What the narrative is interested in is not the journey but the right to decide: the women receive all their information from behind the wagons, hearing the men talk at a distance, and the film builds that in every scene. The framing is a choice. The film was shot in the old square ratio, not widescreen. The reason is inside the narrative: the women's bonnets narrow their field of vision, and the audience's is narrowed too. The sound does the same work. Conversations often cannot be heard, the wind covers them, and important decisions are half caught. The narrative resolves nothing. The film stops at a point and what became of the train is not said. The source is a real event. In 1845 a guide named Stephen Meek lost a wagon train in the desert and many people died. Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano are in the cast. Kelly Reichardt directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes slow, formalist American independent cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a conclusion; very little happens across the narrative and the film closes no question.