Slow West

One of the most com­mon fail­ings among first-time film­mak­ers is an inabil­i­ty to recog­nise when they’re at risk of over­sea­son­ing the dish. You see it all the time, a clunky metaphor here, a stray pop cul­ture ref­er­ence there. It’s per­fect­ly under­stand­able – we’re not for one sec­ond sug­gest­ing that mak­ing films is a cake­walk. But it’s true to say that not every­one suc­ceeds in find­ing a healthy bal­ance between hat-tip­ping and telling their own sto­ry at the first attempt. Thank­ful­ly, British writer/​director John Maclean is some­one who ful­ly appre­ci­ates the dic­tum ​‘less is more’, as evi­denced by his barn­storm­ing debut fea­ture, Slow West, which wears its influ­ences on its claret-flecked sleeve while man­ag­ing to feel brac­ing­ly original.

This marks Maclean’s third col­lab­o­ra­tion with Michael Fass­ben­der fol­low­ing his award-win­ning shorts, Man on a Motor­cy­cle from 2009, and Pitch Black Heist from 2011. Here Fass­ben­der plays Silas Sel­l­eck, a cig­ar-chompin’, dan­ger­ous­ly charis­mat­ic out­law who acts as our guide through this con­sum­mate­ly craft­ed fron­tier west­ern. As well as being the film’s straight-talk­ing nar­ra­tor, Silas is also chap­er­one to a 16-year-old trav­eller named Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee, com­ing of age), who has jour­neyed from the wind-swept high­lands of Scot­land to the scorched bad­lands of the Amer­i­can Mid­west cir­ca 1870 in search of his estranged soul­mate, Rose (Caren Pistorius).

Trou­ble is, Rose and her pa have a hand­some boun­ty on their heads, mean­ing every salt-lipped, shifty-eyed scoundrel in the state is also on their trail. Jay is out of his depth but opti­mistic, believ­ing that his vir­tu­ous inten­tions will see him get the girl. Sel­l­eck, a surly, world-weary sono­va­gun, is com­pas­sion­ate enough to warn the kid not to go look­ing for trou­ble, but is hap­py to enter­tain this roman­tic ges­ture as long as he retains the upper-hand.

Anoth­er reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tor of Maclean’s, DoP Rob­bie Ryan (Fish Tank, Catch Me Dad­dy), makes full use of the dra­mat­ic land­scape at his dis­pos­al (Slow West was pri­mar­i­ly shot on loca­tion in New Zealand), cap­tur­ing the nat­ur­al splen­dour of the rugged Col­orado prairies with­out resort­ing to fill­ing the screen with a slideshow of stock vis­tas. Yet the film is at its most visu­al­ly arrest­ing when the char­ac­ters ven­ture off the beat­en track.

In a bid to evade the mob of cut­throat vagrants who have begun track­ing them, Silas and Jay slip away into a dense patch of sun-dap­pled wood­land. It’s not long before the action starts up again – the threat of abrupt, Coen bros-esque vio­lence is ever-present in Maclean’s world – but for a brief moment we are trans­port­ed to a dif­fer­ent time and place via an absinthe-laced camp­fire anec­dote that serves as a lyri­cal ode to a more tra­di­tion­al mode of storytelling.

In the next scene, Ben Mendelsohn’s sly, swag­ger­ing vil­lain – whose impos­ing bear-skin coat appears to have been bor­rowed from the wardrobe depart­ment of Robert Altman’s 1971 anti-west­ern McCabe and Mrs Miller – takes advan­tage of an intox­i­cat­ed Silas and Jay, before dis­ap­pear­ing into the night. It’s at this point that Maclean switch­es focus away from the cool, hazy shel­ter of the woods, the sub­tle yet sig­nif­i­cant tonal shift in Ryan’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy serv­ing as a splash of cold water to the face after a par­tic­u­lar­ly vivid fever dream. Sud­den­ly we’re wide awake, ful­ly cog­nisant of the inevitable con­flict await­ing our new­ly bond­ed duo.

This is not a film that rev­els in nos­tal­gia, con­stant­ly hark­ing back to the gold­en age of the genre – though it must be said that Maclean does owe a small debt to the Leones, Peck­in­pahs and even Hill­coats that have come before him. Rather, Slow West walks its own line, embrac­ing some of the more time-hon­oured west­ern arche­types and tropes while pro­vid­ing enough colour­ful nar­ra­tive diver­sions to throw us off the scent. Maclean hasn’t set out to make an icon­ic revi­sion­ist west­ern for the ages, just a thor­ough­ly enter­tain­ing ride across famil­iar ter­rain. A bit­ter­sweet mod­ern bal­lad set to a steady, clas­si­cal beat.

In pure tech­ni­cal terms, there is so much to admire here. But impor­tant­ly it doesn’t feel like Maclean has had to raid his director’s toolk­it in order to achieve the dis­tinc­tive look and feel that sets his film apart from oth­er recent neo-west­erns (see Kris­t­ian Levring’s sham­bol­ic The Sal­va­tion). Clear­ly he’s done his research – the cin­e­mat­ic and his­tor­i­cal knowl­edge demon­strat­ed here lends the film an unde­ni­able authen­tic­i­ty, as if the sto­ry has been plucked from the cob­webbed jour­nal of some long-depart­ed gun­slinger. At a trim 84 min­utes, Slow West is one of the most grat­i­fy­ing­ly eco­nom­ic saun­ters into the heart of Old Amer­i­ca you could ever hope to see. And, cru­cial­ly, it feels like the work of a film­mak­er who has a lot more to give.