Slow West

Director John Maclean came to cinema from music; he was a member of The Beta Band from 1997 to 2004. This was not his first work with Michael Fassbender but their third, after the shorts Man on a Motorcycle and Pitch Black Heist, which won a BAFTA in 2012. Slow West is Maclean's first feature. Its geography lies, and lies well. The story is set in Colorado but it was shot in New Zealand, whose landscapes stand in for the American West. A young Scot travels to America looking for the girl he loves, and a gunman attaches himself as a travelling companion. The boy believes he is being protected; the man is in fact hunting the bounty on that same girl. Kodi Smit-McPhee and Fassbender play them. It won the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance in 2015. Who it is for: viewers who like westerns that are short, dry and unexpectedly funny. Who it is not for: anyone expecting classic western scale. It runs around eighty minutes, and the tone slides between fairy tale and black comedy.