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western

The Sisters Brothers: Mining the Golden Kingdom

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Written and directed by Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, Dheepan), The Sisters Brothers tells the story of Charlie and Eli Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly), two contract killers in mid-19thCentury America. Here, Charlie and Eli are teamed with detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal) to find and kill the humble prospector Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed). However, when a betrayal leads to a change in plans, the brothers set out on a journey into the wild to complete their mission.

Billed as comedy, the film is actually anything but. Though there remains moments of humor and levity, Brothers actually takes itself quite seriously, establishing the harshness of the time. Strong performances by the entire cast ground the film, even giving it a surprising level of poignancy.

Further, The Sisters Brothers subverts the values inherent to the Western genre by holding it up to the ideals of the modern era. Held in constant juxtaposition with one another, Eli and Charlie represent two differing Western worldviews. While Charlie lives a life without rules in a constant quest for power, Eli is discontented with a life of violence. Though Charlie remains entirely focused on the mission, Eli remains torn between who he is and who he wants to be. Fascinated with luxuries like a toothbrush or flushable toilet, Eli yearns for a civilized life.

Eli yearns for home.

Whether it’s how they interact with women, handle disputes or their life goals, Charlie and Eli have conflicting ideas about what it meanst to be successful. In doing so, the film usurps the tradition values of the Western (and stereotypical Western values) of taking power by force. In other words, whereas the Western genre usually focuses their stories on one’s ability to show force in a savage time, Brothersquestions that ideal by offering an alternative to violence.

What’s more, Brothers also demonstrates the power of the Kingdom in the lives of those who get a taste for the best that it has to offer. Despite the fact that he’s being hunted by contract killers, Hermann remains steadfast in his belief that his secret will change the world. However, more than simply emphasizing the financial impact of his discovery, he is most concerned with the positive social impact on the local community. He yearns to make his way to Dallas in order to participate in a mysterious commune that believes in seeking the benefit of everyone who lives there. To Hermann, Dallas remains the ideal goal for humankind as ‘a new kind of society’ and the mere prospect of it has reshaped his entire worldview.

More than this though, Hermann’s belief affects everyone who listens to his story. His pronouncement that there’s a ‘better way’ serves as a calling to those around him. Suddenly, men like Charlie, Eli and Morris are faced with a choice to continue on in the ways of the West or potentially experience something hopeful and new (albeit terrifying). By no means is Hermann a preacher… but his perceived Kingdom is infectious. There is something hopeful about the world he proclaims and it has the potential to change everyone and everything around him.

In the end, Brothers is an entertaining film with ambitious ideas. More than a simple character piece, the film examines the truth behind our culture’s idealization of power over community. Holding up the wild West to modern values, Brothersknows we need our history to speak into our present.

 

The Sisters Brothers is opens on September 21st, 2018.

Damsel – A Comedy (sort of) of Pessimism

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“Love and survival are all I want.”

“You’re not exclusive in that notion.”

In Damsel, the Zellner Brothers play with some typical movie genres. As a result, viewers are asked to wrap their minds around things that seem to not quite fit together, but in reality make for a quirky, yet enjoyable experience.

As an example of how things don’t quite fit, we see scenes in desert, in forests, and a seashore, that all seem to exist in the same vicinity. It doesn’t really matter how odd this is, it provides a bit of discontinuity meant to keep us slightly off balance. The same is true with some of the language used in the film. It seems too modern for the setting of a western probably sometime in the 1800s.

As the film opens, two men are waiting for a stagecoach in the middle of a red rock wilderness. One (David Zellner) is heading west in search of a new start after catastrophe in his life. The other, a minister (Robert Forster), is headed east after failing to bring salvation to Indians. The wisdom the minister provided the other man is that “Things are going to be shitty in new and fascinating ways.” He then takes off his clothes, giving them to the other man and heads out into the desert to die. The other man takes the clothes and partial Bible and assumes the persona of Parson Henry.

Then, there is the main story as Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson) comes ashore with a crate in which there is a miniature horse. He comes into a typical western town where he enlists Parson Henry to accompany him to marry his fiancée Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), who has been kidnapped. The plan is to rescue her, propose, give her the miniature horse as a gift, and have Parson Henry do the ceremony. But this hero/damsel-in-distress trope is quickly turned on its head. The story has so taken us in that we can’t help but follow it through even more twists along the way of this odd odyssey. It is hard even to classify this as a comedy or tragedy because the humor and pathos are so intertwined.

But the thread that runs through all the characters and their journeys is a desire to find happiness in a world filled with disappointment. But instead of happiness, the words of the old preacher about “new and fascinating ways” for things to go bad play out over and over. But while pessimism pervades the story, the characters seem to rely on a thin hope of optimism to survive. They may never have any evidence that things will get better, but they never give up on that possibility. Just as many of the laments within the Psalms may think that God does not see or care, the psalmists persist in calling on God to restore and renew them. While these characters do not operate with the idea that God will give them happiness, that hope of newness leads them on.

Phots courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

 

The Rider – Spiritual Depth in a Cowboy’s Story

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What happens when all you’ve ever dreamed of is taken away? That is a question that many films ask, but few answer it as beautifully and spiritually as Chloé Zhao’s The Rider. This is a partially fictionalized story set on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It blends fiction and non-fiction seamlessly to subtly blend hope and despair, beauty and starkness, suffering and healing.

Lakota cowboy Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) is recovering from a near fatal rodeo accident. With a metal plate in his head, doctors have told him that he can’t ride anymore. But riding and training horses are all he’s ever cared about. The film begins following Brady with staples still in his scalp. As he heals, he longs to get back in the saddle, but for him it could be deadly. The film watches as he breaks a wild horse, first by talking, touching, and in time riding. Brady has a gift for calming a horse and gaining its trust.

With his friends Brady tries to keep up the hope that he’ll ride again, and they encourage him. Brady also visits Lane Scott, a rodeo rider, who was injured in an auto accident and can only communicate with one hand. With Lane, Brady speaks and touches in ways very much like he does with horses. He exudes gentleness and compassion.

One of the things I noticed in the film is that nearly everyone is injured and in need of healing in some way. Brady’s sister Lilly (Lilly Jandreau) has Asperger’s syndrome. There is a man with a hook of a hand. Brady’s horse Gus has a nose worn raw from rubbing a fence. But sometimes, things cannot be healed. His other horse Apollo is injured beyond help. It leads Brady to wonder why he rates being kept alive more than a horse does.

Although the film only occasionally is overtly religious (the film does have some excellent authentic prayers), its spiritual power is much more subtle. Healing in this film is rarely about the physical. It is the healing of souls that the characters engender in one another. Brady and Lilly both have severe handicaps, but their love for each other and their commitment to care for one another gives them strength and hope. Lane is completely wheelchair bound, but Brady sets things up so he can relive the experience of riding once again in a scene that may seem heartbreaking at one level, but at the same time, it is a powerful example of giving a friend a gift of regeneration—at least regeneration of the soul.

The Rider is the kind of film that may exhaust you from the depth that is hidden within its simplicity. But from that exhaustion one will come away with a renewed belief in the perseverance of the human spirit.

The Rider  received four Film Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

 

 

Hostiles – Journey Between Life and Death

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“When we lay our heads down out here, we’re all prisoners.”

In Scott Cooper’s new western Hostiles, the cowboy-and-Indian genre is used to consider the power that prejudices hold over us. But it also gives a glimpse of the possibility of reconciliation that can overcome even lifelong animosities.

Cavalry Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) is a former war hero. He now spends his day chasing down renegade bands of Comanches and bringing them to jail. He’s due to retire, but instead he is assigned a public relations mission—to escort a dying Comanche chief to his ancestral lands in Montana. Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) has been imprisoned in New Mexico for decades. Now dying of cancer, he is granted permission from the President to return to Montana with his family (who will again be imprisoned after his death).

Blocker wants nothing to do with this. Yellow Hawk has killed many of his friends through the years. But when threatened with a court-martial and loss of his pension, he reluctantly agrees. Blocker and a small detachment set out on the journey that will be a bit like The Odyssey with various trials and dangers on the way.

Soon after they leave, they come across a homestead that has recently been attacked by a band of Comanches. Only the wife/mother, Rosalee Quinn (Rosamund Pike), survived the attack. She is near catatonic watching over her “sleeping” children. Blocker brings her along on the way to the next fort. The women of Yellow Hawk’s family share their clothes with Rosalee, the first act of compassion by either side. As the journey progresses there will be much that gives those on each side insight into the life of the others.

The most obvious theme of the film is the way racism and prejudice have been central in our national understanding. The attitudes with which Blocker and his cohort, and Yellow Hawk and his family view each other is not really as persons but rather as stereotypes. It is only as they slowly see each other’s strengths and weaknesses that they begin to see the common humanity. But even with racism so front and center, the film also subverts our ideas. One of Blocker’s party is African-American, a buffalo soldier with whom Blocker has served for some time.

But there are also deeper conversations to be drawn from the film. This is a story that is permeated with death. Yellow Hawk is dying. Rosalee’s family is already dead. Death can come upon them in many forms at any moment. The soldiers (as well as Yellow Hawk and his son Black Hawk (Adam Beach)) are all trained in killing. Death is seen as loss, as tragedy, as inevitable, as fulfillment, as an escape, and as punishment at various points of the film. Killing may happen as a necessity, as desperation, or as an act of anger and revenge.

As we study the various characters in the film, we may well see signs of what is now recognized as Post Traumatic Stress and Moral Injury. After an early encounter, a young Lieutenant (Jesse Plemons) is disturbed because this was his first time to kill a man. Master Sergeant Metz (Rory Cochrane) tells him that after enough killing, you don’t feel anything. The lieutenant responds, “That’s what I’m afraid of.” MSgt Metz and Blocker, both long time Cavalry soldiers exhibit signs of “melancholia”—they are weary of all the killing and of all the men that they have lost.

The paradox of the film is that it simultaneously is a journey from life to death and a journey from death to life. Yellow Hawk grows more ill as the journey progresses. There are various deaths along the way from a variety of reasons. Few of those who set out will make it to the end. But there is also movement in the other direction. Those who are dead on the inside find a chance for new life if they are willing to seek it. It is this hope that makes Hostiles more than just a rehash of the exploitive history of the American West. It allows the story to reflect the conflicts that continue to fill our culture and if we will choose to see them as journeys of death or towards life and fullness.

Photos courtesy Yellow Hawk, Inc.

The Ballad of Left Brown – Cliché Western Rides Again

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There’s a new Western in town: The Ballad of Lefty Brown. Once upon a time Westerns were a staple of the movie industry. Now when one comes out they create a bit of nostalgia. As a genre Westerns focused on the mythology of America—especially freedom and hard work creating a growing, prosperous nation. At their best, Westerns dig deeper to address some of our culture’s problems. But for the most part they were really a veneer that made America look like we wanted it too. The latter is very much what we find in The Ballad of Lefty Brown.

The twist in this film is that the sidekick becomes the hero. Lefty Brown (Bill Pullman) has been the sidekick of famed Montana lawman Edward Johnson (Peter Fonda) for many years. Now Johnson is about to head to Washington as a new Senator. He wants to leave Lefty in charge of his ranch, even though Johnson’s wife Laura (Kathy Baker) doesn’t think Lefty is up to the job. Lefty isn’t too sure he is either. He has always been in Johnson’s shadow. Even when Lefty, Edward, the current Governor Jimmy Bierce (Jim Caviezel) and Tom Harrah (Tommy Flanagan) were keeping peace in the area and inspiring dime novels about their exploits, Lefty was never in the stories.

When Edward and Lefty are out looking for some rustlers, Edward is killed. Lefty vows to get those responsible. When he sets off he comes across Jeremiah (Diego Josef) a young man who has read all the stories and seeks glory as a gunfighter. When Tom Harrah (now a U. S. Marshal after years of alcoholism) comes to stop Lefty, Lefty convinces him to join in the hunt. The three track down the killers, but they also discover that there are powerful people behind the killing. On returning with the information, Lefty discovers he’s been framed for the killing. He is determined to see justice done, even if it means exposing the political corruption that may taint an old friend.

In Lefty, Pullman is almost channeling Gabby Hayes, who was a frequent sidekick to heroes like John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Bill Elliott. There is a certain incompetence that characterizes sidekick, and Lefty seems far below the skill level we expect in a hero. But his sense of loyalty, determination, and justice, propel him to be the hero he has never been.

The film’s shortcoming is that it is so cliché. It seems all the characters are what we would expect in an old Saturday Morning serial. The noble Edward, the morally week Marshal, the corrupt politician, the young tenderfoot with dreams of grandeur. And at the center of it all is the sidekick, usually the comic foil, but can he rise to the task of being the story’s hero? For those who want a bit of the nostalgic feel of old Westerns, The Ballad of Lefty Brown might feed that, because it is all so familiar. But aside from the virtues of loyalty and friendship, there’s not much here to challenge our thinking about what America really is or should be.

Preacher, S2: The Wandering Preacher Returns

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Combining the dry dustiness of Breaking Bad, the dark humour of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the unpredictable violence and bleakness of Game of Thrones, Preacher continues to establish itself as one of the more unique voices in television.  Following the journey of Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper), a small-town preacher possessed with the spirit of an angel/demon hybrid name Genesis, the show frequently breaks new ground as it explores the border between edgy storytelling and spiritual conversation.

Season 2 picks up almost immediately after the events of last year’s season finale, as Jesse, girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga) and Irish vampire Cassidy (Joe Gilgun) have set out on their spiritual quest to find God, who is missing from Heaven.  Unaware of the destruction of their hometown of Annville, the trio venture out into the Texas wilderness, fuelled by their anger towards the Almighty but without any actual direction.  To make matters worse, Jesse is also being pursued relentlessly by the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish), a Hell-bound assassin hired kill him in order to reclaim Genesis.

With its dark tone and violent imagery, Preacher likely isn’t for everyone and season two certainly ups the ante.  (In the premiere alone, we are witness to multiple deaths and the most creative use of an intestine ever.)  However, the script and storytelling are so bold and rich that it continues to be one of the most theologically challenging shows in recent years (or, potentially, ever). Painted as an anti-heroic preacher, Jesse’s quest for God is more out of vengeance than reverence.  He, and his partners-in-crime, are broken and lost, cursed to roam the earth looking for answers.  Their home town has been completely wiped out, presumably devoid of survivors.  For them, there is no true place of safety and rest anymore.  In Preacher, theirs is the very definition of a desolate life.

But it’s in the midst of this anguish that the film reveals a genuine spiritual interest.  For example, when it’s revealed in last season’s finale that God is absent, the people completely give themselves over to their deepest and darkest impulses.  In a moment of sheer acquiescence, the people of Annville are so lost that they literally explode.  Yet, this fall to despair ultimately demonstrates a desire… no, a need… for God to rule.  Though the brokenness stems from a feeling of abandonment, it subsequently also shows that there is a reason that belief matters.

At the heart of this show is an angst and recklessness that echoes the current state of our global culture.  While some would argue that the purpose of religious interests is merely to impose rules and ‘keep people in line’, Preacher suggests that the need for God stems from a need for hope.  Like the people in Annville, our world has a desperate desire to believe that there is someone who has answers for the mess below.  Where is God in a world of hatred and evil?  Is it true that the only God that matters is the ‘god of meat’, as Quinncannon (Jackie Earle Haley) insists?  While these questions aren’t new to our world (or the media), what is drastically different is the tone and approach.  Unlike other spiritually themed shows, Preacher doesn’t merely tiptoe into questions like this… it runs full speed into them!

It’s this combination of spiritual boldness, dark humor and character that makes Preacher so interesting.  Like the smallest of plants taking root in the desert, Jesse’s quest still reveals a glimmer of life and hope in the midst of the dryness of the Texas desert.

Preacher returns on Sunday, June 25th on AMC and resumes on Monday nights beginning the 26th.

3.14 Losing LOGAN

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This week on the show, Steve reconnects with Arnaldo Reyes and Peter Adourian to talk about purpose and hopeful death in James Mangold’s LOGAN.  (We may even answer the eternal question: Why Arnaldo doesn’t like Jackman’s Wolverine!)

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.14 Logan

Thanks to Peter Adourian and Arnaldo Reyes for joining us on the show!

Logan – Will the Real Wolverine Please Stand Up?

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There’s much to be said about an actor playing a particular role in film nine times.

In a way, he/she must’ve done something right and even made that particular role nearly iconic. Hugh Jackman has done that, to my dismay (or dislike, however you want to call it). It’s not that I’m not a fan of his. It’s just that I’ve never been a fan of his portrayal of Wolverine. Only twice have I felt that the character that I grew up admiring and loving was captured as he should be, but most of the time it was someone else. This is probably more on the studio and scripts than it is on Hugh. After X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I completely gave up on them. (In fact, it wasn’t until two weeks ago that I finally saw The Wolverine because there was nothing else to watch on TV and, even then, I found myself playing games on my phone rather than watching the movie.)

So here I am, I paid to see the film on a Thursday night for two reasons: It was Hugh Jackman’s last hoorah and it was the live action appearance of my second favorite Wolverine…X-23 (aka Laura). When I first heard she would be in the film, I cringed. I felt that, not only had they ruined Logan, but now they were going to ruin Laura as well. When the trailers came out, I felt a little more optimistic yet still apprehensive. With all this, I bought my tickets, went to the theater, leaned back the comfy recliner and, finally, I saw the real Wolverine.

Logan is set in a distant future. Mutants are basically no more (as was said in the trailers) and Logan himself is a mess. Running away from a life he wants to forget, his life is turned upside down with the discovery of a young girl just like him. Throughout the film you see a man that has taken everything life has thrown at him and quite frankly doesn’t want to live anymore. Yet, even in a broken state, there is the kind, good man. I felt previous films failed to show Logan’s brokenness but this film finally captured it extremely well. He isn’t the prototypical hero and, even with healing factor, he isn’t invulnerable. Logan is a multi layered character that basically has dealt with crap his whole life and has always survived. In this film, we finally see that Logan: the one that wentthrough hell and back and yet still shows why he is the best at what he does.

However, Logan really isn’t the highlight of this film. X-23 gets the origin story in film that Wolverine never really got. I won’t sugar coat it, she is extremely violent, she is hurt, abused and, later, redeemed. She is everything like Logan, and if you know her history then you know why. Throughout the film, she is trying to fight what she is while also trying to figure out who she should be. She’s chasing freedom, but discovering something much more. Her life has been nothing short of awful, yet the hero she is meant to be runs through her blood. She is the one that helps Logan find his way back and remind him just who he is and she also finds out who she should be. She’s Laura and she’s not a mistake. She’s her father’s daughter and she’s the best at what she does.

In such a bloody film (yes, it’s bloody, that’s why it’s rated R), it’s amazing to find so much heart. ]Logan is a film that teaches us that life is rough and no matter how hard it gets, we need to remember one thing, the importance of family. Family is the rock we can lean on to get us through this journey called life. It’s no wonder Jesus calls us His brothers and sisters, because He desires us all to be family and He understands the importance of it. The Lord created family for a reason because without it we are nothing. Logan and Laura discover it and in their way teach us what truly matters.

Logan is a great film that was well done in every way. I would say I only had two complaints that I won’t spoil since they serve major roles to the actual film, but I really felt on those two parts they should have expanded a little more.

Furthermore, there is an amazing short film (if we want to call it that) right at the beginning, so don’t miss it. However, there is no end credits trailer, so don’t bother staying till the end. All and all, I will again say that, even though it took nine attempts, the real Wolverines did stand up.

And they were amazing.

Hell or High Water – Brothers at Arms

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hhwThe neo-Western Hell or High Water is one of the funniest, saddest, most exciting, thought-provoking films I’ve seen this year. Wrapped around the story of two brothers’ attempts to rob banks, this wildly different film shares their relationship, the saga of the nearly-retired Texas Ranger on their heels, and the way that the U.S. economy plays a part in their story. It’s a must-see film of 2016, and one that you can now bring home on Blu-ray, DVD, or digital.

Desperate, divorced father Toby Howard (Chris Pine) throws in with his wildly spastic ex-con brother, Tanner (Ben Foster), starting a spree of bank robberies at branches of the Texas Midland Bank. Their plan seems flawless (doesn’t every heist film seem flawless at the beginning) but Tanner’s growing restlessness (and unnecessary penchant for violence) begins to grate on Toby – and threaten their plan. Meanwhile, the eccentric Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) leads his partner, Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), closer and closer to capturing the two. [Of the other actors on screen, Katy Mixon’s turn as a diner waitress is a scene stealer.]

hhw2

The rapport between the two blood brothers, and the two brothers-at-arms in the Rangers, lends itself to a more intimate film. It’s a close-up on the robbers, and on the cops, but it shows the way that the concerns the pairs have are similar. [Note how the pictures of the two sets of men lay out nearly identical to each other.] They want security, friendship, and trust; they want to believe that their lives have meaning and purpose. But somehow, the violent streak of Foster’s Tanner seems to lurk like a threatening villain off in the corners. And ultimately, that violence takes a turn (as all of Foster’s roles do) that spins the course of the story off in a different direction from the feel-good Robin Hood vibe we have up until that point.

Until violence completely breaks out, we’ve been lulled into nearly believing that there are no victims because the big bank is really the villain; we can believe that we see ourselves in Toby and Tanner as decidedly upset with the way our economies are unraveling or that we’re just like Hamilton, hoping to retire gracefully when the time comes, just not yet. But we shouldn’t be surprised that somehow Taylor Sheridan’s (Sicario) script is both realistic and terrifying at the same time, at least if we’ve seen that Denis Villenueve thriller.

hhw3Somewhere along the way, we recognize that Tanner can’t settle for the same things Toby and Hamilton want; there’s just something off about him. But we recognize in the way that the storyline plays out that both sets of brothers would do whatever it takes for their loved ones, that they would lay their lives down for their friends. It leads us to reflect on what we would fight for, how we define justice in an unjust world, and where we would go (and what lines we would cross) if our lives were on the line.

On the special features included in the home media releases, fans of the film can see how the characters of the film were developed in “Enemies Forever”; the look of the tan-and-green backdrop to the dusty America our robbers inherit gets unwrapped in “Visualizing the Heart of America”; and the way the cast delivers the story gets a spin in “Damaged Heroes.”

In a Valley of Violence – Sin and Salvation in the Old West

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“I’m not here to save you. I’m not here to save anybody.”

The Spaghetti Western is back! In a Valley of Violence harkens back to the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. From the opening credits we know a very close similarity to films like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Like those earlier Westerns, this is something of a demythologized West. There is no romance to this vision of the Old West. People and life are hard. There is little love to be seen. Through it all, there is a good deal of talk about sin and salvation.

In a Valley of Violence

On his way to Mexico, Paul (Ethan Hawke) and his dog Abbie come across a whisky priest (Burn Gorman) in the desert. He is told that over the ridge is the town of Denton, that is “full of sinners.” While Paul wants to avoid other people, he decides a stop in town would be a good idea. When he arrives in town, the first building is a boarded up church. Paul reflects, “God must have packed up and left with the rest of them.” Soon Paul has a run-in with Gilly (James Ransone), the local bully and son of the Marshal (John Travolta). Paul is happy to go on his way, but Gilly isn’t willing to let things go. Violence and vengeance escalate, and Paul, who is haunted by his past, must go back on the promise he made himself to not kill any more.

Added to this mix are two sisters, Mary-Anne (Taissa Farmiga) and Ellen (Karen Gillan) who run the town’s hotel. Ellen has connected herself to Gilly as a way out of the boring life of this community. Mary-Anne, whose husband has left her, sees her hope of escape in Paul. But Paul has a past that makes him not want any human connections. He sees himself as a sinner without hope of redemption. As such, he won’t allow himself to be loved, and so cannot offer love.

In a Valley of Violence

It is interesting just how often the ideas of sin and salvation come up in the dialogue between all these characters. They seem to be defined by the sins of their lives. Anger and hubris are very central to Gilly and his cohort. The Marshal just wants to maintain a status quo, even though he knows his son is dangerous. Ellen embodies vanity. Paul cannot let go of the sins of his past. That is the very reason he his drifting through the desert to get to Mexico. Only Mary-Anne has a claim to goodness. She spends her life taking care of others but feels as though she is punished for it. Salvation seems impossible to these characters. Paul just seeks solitude as an escape from his guilt. The rest seem to see themselves as residing in hell. It is Mary-Anne who is actively looking for something better—a redemption that she hopes she can find in Paul.

In A Valley Of Violence

Whether salvation can be found in this film is a question worth considering. But a deeper question is whether violence can be the medium by which salvation is accomplished. This is a story that is driven by revenge and violence. Does all that overcome the sinfulness that envelops Denton or by the end do we think that the evil that dwells there has come out victorious?

Photos courtesy Focus World