Kristian Levring (director)
Warner Brothers (studio)
15 (certificate)
92 minutes (length)
10 August 2015 (released)
05 August 2015
Jon Jensen has just had his wife raped, Son brutally beaten and killed the man who did this. One drop of blood spilled will always mean more must follow. The man he killed was the brother of a local gang owner and former solider Henry Delarue. He travels to the local town that he has control over. Forcing the Sheriff to find the killer and have his retribution paid. The town can’t find the killer and instead provides a cripple, an old lady and a working man. This doesn’t cover the bill for Delarue. He wants more money, more retribution and even more blood.
Westerns as a genre have been used as allegory, as metaphor and in cultural reflection. The reason for this is often because this genre is grounded in a recognisable and modern world. Race, the place of religion in society, the make up of gender and the problems of mass immigration are among the very consistent concerns today. They were also the same fears of this time and often created substantial events. The Native Indian war saw thousands wiped out due simply to their ethnic origin. The slave trade had become devisive at this point with Chinese, Black and Indian groups all having built a country they had no role in. Mass immigration from Europe had caused pools of development, money and ideas to flow in. It had also created poles of opposition from 'natives' and fears of legality with others. Within any revisionist and modern western all this must be at least hinted and at most introduced. On one side of this film is an allegory about the states of modern immigration and on the other side is a film about the developing identity in this world. It mentions much more but it is aiming directly at these poles as its conversation pieces.
In the interest of clarity it would be best to point out that this is a Norwegian film. Norway and Scandinavian film is going through a renaissance and very deservedly so. With this we have the first steps not just into genre film making but also crafting a movement that would be similar in body to Italian cinemas nod to Westerns, Spaghetti westerns. The film itself is visually compelling, gloomy, darkened and burnt out. This is heightened by very clever use of light and shade, night and day. The sound also build the world and in some respects this also adds dimensions. Rain, wind and the rustle of dry crops are all defining pieces of a puzzle. As a performed piece however the film falls and flays. They range from mediocre to excellent. Mads has lifted Eastwood in essence and in presence, which is no bad thing. Eva Green is also very good in a role that she is mute in. A hard thing to perform with only expressing an emotion very either slight facial gestures or noises of breathing. Expressive eyes play a part in this and Eva has the eyes of a goddess. Outside of this, performances are dull and dry. It may be due to a script that is not built of much more than a straight forward story of revenge and maybe I am looking to deeply into it.