Reichard's speed

Remington 2022-01-20 08:01:15

After watching it premiered at the New York Film Festival last year, I was deeply fascinated by this new work by Reichardt. I watched it again immediately after it was launched on the VOD platform yesterday, and it was still very moving.

Spoilers

In Kelly Reichard's new work "The First Cow", which returns to the history of the Westward Movement in the United States, the budding of capitalism and the American dream suddenly rose in a few golden butter biscuits, and quickly reached the trunk of the tree. It disappeared between the fracture and a few gunshots. Naturally, the film is not entirely focused on the arrival of wealth, but on the touching friendship between the two male protagonists-the cook Cookie from Maryland and the first immigrant King Lu from China. A large part of the lens looks at the picture of the two living together: they just arrived in the small wooden house on Jinlu, but the two began to "live" as if they had lived here for a long time-in a long depth of field mirror, we saw the cook The house was cleaned and the dust was removed, while the Chinese chopping firewood a little lame outside the window. Everything is so natural and beautiful, just like the verse of William Blake quoted in the opening of the film: "Birds have nests, spiders have webs, and people have friendship." There are many great works in the history of film, such as Eric Hou In Mai’s "Shuangshu Romance" and "The Story of Spring", the author expresses the pure friendship between young women by showing the cohabitation life of young women, as well as the possibility of transcending the stereotyped family life. Here, Rechard She uses her heroes to express a similar beautiful situation.

With her independent works, Reichard has quietly become one of the most important contemporary American directors. Her films often have a meditational slow pace, and the land she has always lived in—the northwestern states of the United States ("Some The depiction of Montana in "A Woman", the film and Oregon in "Yesterday's Joy") set her apart from most independent authors of the same generation; her lens has a little gray landscape, and Those plain and introverted characters cannot be classified into the ancient type of Westerns. That being said, in some passages of the film, even if she has no time to show off the magnificent scenery of the west, Reichard has shown an almost John Ford-style control of movement and speed. These passages are unbiased, it is the drama of the two protagonists selling their cash cow-like delicacies at the market-it seems to Rechard that the arrival of money is accompanied by a peculiar speed. The "precious" secret pastries were robbed as soon as they went on the market, and Reichard also speeded up the rhythm freely. There were four market scenes, including the secret milking scene in the farm of the British leader. , Rushed past in just 15 minutes, which is extremely fast in Rechard's pedigree (this film is actually the longest work since she has been in film, but it is completely invisible when viewed); sports also become more dramatic Transformation is embodied in the horizontal scenes that show the queuing scenes (the order brought by capital can not help but remind people of the hot scenes of certain shops in reality), and the Hawks-style multiplayer scenes (greed and comedy) . "This will raise the price, and they are not stupid!"

Rechard’s movies have never been so ups and downs and humorous. Thanks to the food-based politics shown in "The First Cow", it is naturally the politics of survival: we have to understand where the food in the belly comes from. . The nobles took these for granted, and the proud leader played by Toby Jones didn't even realize that he was being stolen under his nose. Ironically, even so, he is also a beneficiary-he successfully used the French pastry made by Cookie to mock his captain friend, and put the other party to shame by saying "Some cream?" The latest fashion trends in Paris. The audience may say that the two protagonists' stealing behavior is not "moral", but Reichard (and the cow in the film) do not need to care about this discussion. After all, the foundation of colonial operations is based on exploitation. In history, the author only shows who can "better" produce economic benefits from it, and more importantly, who can better understand and create connections. Quite simply, even in the face of his noble "master", the naive cow quietly licked the thief's hand. The soft-spoken Cookie (John Magaro, in "Carol" by Rechard’s friend Todd Hines, he plays Rooney Mara’s shy photographer friend, probably in that movie The only male character who is not "macho") is not a typical image of an expedition. As a chef, he followed the fur hunter to the west, he is not so "masculine", and he is not even in conflict with him in the whole film. Have held any weapons. He survived because of his cooking, a symbol of relationship and love, not violence. There is a firm simplicity in his philosophy of survival. If you want to live a good life, even in this dangerous dense forest, perhaps the more important thing is not to fight at all times, but to put the debris in the new friend’s house. Take care of it and pick a few wild flowers for decoration.

This is an illusion of civilization in a barren land: delicious cakes come and go fast, and the wealth of Cookie and Jinlu also come and go quickly, and soon end in an accident. Then came a long and long slow video. Faced with the chasing of the noble gunman, Jin Lu jumped into the river without hesitation. Cookie, who is not adventurous, hides in the woods. The separation of the two protagonists makes the film also heavy. Returning to a more tense and contemplative tone-in Yuanjiang, the pressure of survival is still the only real existence in the air, and the audience also watched the narrower environment slowly pushing the two to the end of the film, the small house. The tranquility of inner life is no longer, replaced by another kind of silence-dragging a tired body through the forest. Although both of them were assisted by the aboriginals during their escape, the language barrier prevented the two parties from being able to communicate. Jinlu may be able to painstakingly learn the aboriginal language (no subtitles, the audience is kept in the dark)-a very good detail (just as Cookie accidentally told us about his proficiency in English, and told us the experience of this character, obviously he experienced Too much, after all, the nobles in the mansion disdain to learn languages, and are only willing to achieve the purpose of communication through translation), but in the end the Chinese get some benefits in exchange (the audience can understand it without subtitles) , A few buttons in exchange for a chance to cross the river. On the second day, Cookie woke up in the home of an aboriginal old man, the light was like a dream, and there seemed to be an invisible wall between him and the benefactor who saved his life.

"Respect... something." On the day the two met for the first time, Jin Lu jokingly toasted Cookie, which was also talking about the land of opportunity in America. For him, there is always such a "something" to be able to pursue, "everything is new", waiting for him to dig. He is a familiar, intelligent and bold Chinese image, but this sensitivity to the future seems like a curse. After every day of the transaction, he involuntarily thinks about the future career prospects of himself and Cookie. Chanting usually talks to himself, mumbling about what kind of hotel to open in San Francisco, or wondering if customers will one day get bored with their signature dishes. However, the magic of the film lies in the fact that Reichard used a time-space-traveling structure to establish the fateful ending of the two protagonists early in the opening-lying side by side and dying in the forest of Oregon until his bones are hundreds of thousands. Years later, it was dug up by a passing girl and a dog. But as the story progresses, when the atmosphere continues to push us into the world of the two, it is easy for us to forget the opening of the film. But the story ended quietly in this way: the two who finally met in the escape began a new journey exhaustedly. Cookie, with his head injured, lay down next to a tree first, thinking about replacing it. The golden road he guarded could not resist tiredness, and lay down beside him. Only when the film came to an abrupt end here, and the theme song played by the acoustic guitar sounded with a black screen, did we suddenly come back into consciousness, "Ah, I have seen this video long ago!"

As for the first cow? She was raised in captivity and became a certain model of the future—like the "Citizen Kane", surrounded by iron fences, the image that says "It is strictly forbidden to cross over in private territory", but here, "the first cow" "There is no secret to the gimmick. She cannot walk towards the future, the future will walk towards her. What about the biscuits that are overflowing with the smell of milk? Perhaps it was just for these two men to make a fortune in this land at the end of their lives and experience the magical speed of the American dream coming true, but more importantly, the true nature of these foods themselves: perhaps in the desert. The ecstasy of eating rare and delicious food in the land, perhaps "mother’s taste", or nostalgia for the London tea time, the emotion is pure, even weak, because it can not change any conflicts and exploitation in this land And violence will continue. But no matter how small the truth is, the author captures them: In the home of the nobleman, two aboriginal women with unknown names (naturally among them are the familiar face Lily Gladstone in "Some Woman") in the man ( The white guys sat down immediately after leaving the house, laughing, we couldn't understand their language, but Reichard deliberately gave a few seconds of the moment that belonged to them. Cookie and Golden Road can only get each other in the end.

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Extended Reading
  • Amy 2022-04-21 09:03:09

    I love Reichardt's door frame composition, and after watching it for half an hour, I couldn't help but give it five stars.

  • Susie 2022-04-23 07:04:03

    The sad song of the Chinese secret recipe cookie in the western small forest, friendship is forever

First Cow quotes

  • Fort Trapper: She's a very fine cow.

  • King-Lu: I think we should test the waters. Next batch, Cookie, we'll take to market. I've heard a fortune is made on this.

    Cookie: That seems dangerous.

    King-Lu: So is anything worth doing.