Saw The Proposition, a grimy contemplative film in the vein of There Will Be Blood. It follows an outlaw who has been sicced on his outlaw family in order to save his pathetic younger brother who may well be retarded (it's tough to say. He mostly just cries and cringes a lot.) Anyway we also follow the sheriff who is seemingly a decent and upstanding man. He commands a gang of ugly, ugly officers and is under the thumb of an effete but bloodthirsty English twit. There's also a couple discursions here and there, as we check in on a besotted bounty hunter or we visit the sheriff's wife.
The film is interesting and not just a pretty face but oh boy is that face pretty. Everything is grimy and filthy and shot in the crispest, brightest way possible. The dust and flies over everything sparkle and glisten with vivid detail. It's one of those films that are just crying out to be screencapped. The music is great too. Apparently the script was written by the composer, Nick Cave. The soundtrack matches the visuals: classical instruments played in a staid, colonial sort of way, with drums and synths sneaking in ever so delicately here and there.
The film was a bit too blood-and-guts for me to really love, but this film looks good and sounds good. It's full of outsized Western mythology. It never quite veers into melodrama or camp however. It's got a Terrence Malick-ish vibe to it, contemplative but not as slow as Malick likes to get. It's not quite as compelling as There Will Be Blood (this film I felt was a tad too lurid) but that's the film I'd compare this one to. Moody, beautiful, ghastly. This also predates There Will Be Blood by two years which of course came out at the same time as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country For Old Men. I'd go so far as to say this was the first of the wave of gothic westerns we got in 2007. Well done.
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