Seraphim Falls (2006)

“For Americans, westerns were always about paradise lost – a world already gone. Revivals correspond less to times of war than times of environmental anxiety, when we most fear that a way of life is on the verge of extinction. The funny thing is that this feeling of a way of life on the edge of extinction was already the point in the first westerns. From its origins, the western was already an elegy. The western always comes after ‘the west’

.
(Adam Simon, director and cultural critic).


finally, dupa 5 ani am vazut si Seraphim Falls, unul din cele mai bune westernuri de data recenta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphim_Falls
Interesant ca toate westernurile bune din anii 2000 nu au fost la cinema la noi (minus citeva, Asasinarea lui Jesse James, The Proposition, True Grit-6:10 to Yuma n-a fost bun so...) Dealtfel nu au fost nici multe. Am gasit pe wikipedia o lista care include si filme contemporane (There Will Be Blood, Three Burials of Melquiade Estrada), western romantic (Cold Mountain), si comedii (800 Balas, Bandidas), si hibrizi (Bluebbery), si noodle western (Sukyaki Western Sjango, The Good, The Bad and The Weird), Outback western (The Tracker).

David Von Ancken, regizor de TV, a avut ambitia sa faca acest western atipic, revizionist, pe care l-a co-scris (alaturi de Abby Everett Jaques), in mare o urmarire-cursa intre doua personaje, oarecum existentialist, gen Jospeh Losey in Figures on a Landscape sau Jerzy Skolimovski in Essential Killing.

plotul ar fi simplist: Liam Neeson il urmareste pe Pierce Brosnan. E primul western pentru amindoi (Brosnan a jucat si in Grey Owl). Neeson e un fel de capitan Ahab iar Brosnan e Moby Dick-ul sau (Richard Gere trebuia sa joace initial dar s-a retras, mai bine pentru ca acum ai doi Irlandezi dezlantuiti). Revenge movie dupa razboiul civil-aprox. 1860, filmat superb in New Mexico si Utah, in scope (2.35.1), imagine de John Toll (Thin Red Line, Legends of The Fall, Braveheart). Ambii actori sunt excelenti (mai ales Brosnan, care dupa Bond a facut roluri excelente, de la The Matador la The Ghost Writer) , secondati de Michael Wincott, si in roluri episodice de actori de compozitie minunati, unii din ei intr-o singura scena (Anjelica Huston, Angie Harmon, Ed Lauter, Kevin J. O'Connor, Tom Noonan, Wes Studi, Xander Berkeley).

Cel mai aproape de The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) al lui Clint Eastwood, dar cu alta concluzie, si un act 3 aproape de alegorie si un final care citeaza din Greed la lui Erich Von Stroheim.
-muzica de Harry Gregson-Williams, cu un sound design de landscape, apoi un soundscape simfonic si o trompeta care te face sa te gindesti la Jerry Goldsmith si mai ales la Patton ! Din pacate soundtrackul n-a aparut pe nicaieri !

site-ul neoficial care spune lucruri...are toate cronicile

“a primal, elemental chase film”.

(David Von Ancken)
“

It was really inspired by the primal, universal power of the landscape and the way it strips away everything but the truth of men’s souls.”

Abby Everett Jaques.
-trailer cam explicativ si conformist

4 din 5, 8 din 10 !