THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021)
Directed by Jane Campion
Netflix (distributor), 126 minutes, R (language, nudity)
★★★★★
The Power of the Dog has been nominated for a dozen Academy Awards. With due respect to several other really good movies, it is the not just the finest film of 2021, it is one of the very best of the 21st century. The only things that would prevent it or director Jane Campion–who is also nominated for best adapted screenplay–from winning everything in sight is that it’s not a Hollywood movie and Campion has won before (The Piano).
Why do non-Americans have a better grasp of U.S. history and national metaphors than those born here? Part of the blame lies with Hollywood, which plays to tired formulas rather than taking chances. The joke is on Hollywood; Campion’s film has already quintupled its production costs with an English lead (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a cast that includes four Aussies, a Canadian, and two others who, like Ms. Campion, hail from New Zealand.
The title comes from the Old Testament Book of Psalms 22:20: Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! King David used it and other scavenging animals as metaphors for his enemies. Christians say it prefigures the Crucifixion of Jesus. Campion adapted a 1983 Western novel by Thomas Savage of the same name, and perhaps you’ll wonder why on earth the title wasn’t changed. Be patient; all will be explained.
On the surface (key word), The Power of the Dog is a Western, but this one is not of the John Wayne variety. It is set in Montana in the year 1925, a time in which cattle drives are long over and ranching is in transition. Two brothers, Phil (Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) have grown rich from the ranch, but Phil hangs on to bygone days and George has seen the future.
Phil, is a man’s man–there’s a joke here but I won’t spoil it–and fits most of your preconceptions of a cowboy: sweaty, dirt-caked, stubble-faced, and loud-mouthed. He left Yale for the rugged life, spends his days with other ranch hands, and regales them with tales of yore when he hung out with his mentor, Bronco Henry. Phil ascribes Bunyanesque qualities to Henry, whose (metaphorical) ghost haunts Phil’s thoughts.
George is altogether different. He has cleaned up his act to the degree that his conversations with his brother are practically monosyllabic. He has become mild-mannered, polite, and has exchanged his dusty duds for fancy ones. Rather than drink and whore with the boys, he has his eye on the widow Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst), whom he soon marries. (Plemons and Dunst are also married in life.) With Rose comes her son, the effeminate Peter (Kodi Smit-Phee), who at first is Phil’s object of ridicule. Smit-McPhee was an inspired choice. He’s the proverbial tall sip of water, a guy who over six-feet tall but looks as if he’s all legs. He’s a perfect foil for Phil, though watch his eyes, as they tell a different tale.
The pace of the film is slow and told in various chapters, but Campion brilliantly sneaks profound themes and tropes into her picture: sweat and cleanliness, the coming of modernism, sibling rivalry, respectability and alcoholism, banjo versus piano, things covered and uncovered, schemes gone wrong and those realized. At its core are damaged people who cannot express their true natures. Had this film been made in the 1970s, it would have been labeled an anti-Western Western. In other words, it’s more Robert Altman than John Ford.
Campion deftly personifies non-humans. The long-dead Henry never appears, nor does his ghost, but his saddle is so fetishized that you expect it to speak. Steers, horses, gloves, and hats are more than background, and cinematographer Ari Wegner shows you Montana as you’ve never seen it–unless you’ve been to Central Otago in New Zealand! His shots are so convincing, though, that belief will be suspended. Campion and Wegner also use the hulking decrepit-on-the-outside/posh-on-the-inside Burbank mansion, but situate it amidst a landscape so huge that it looks as if the sky will open its maw and swallow it whole. A shout out also goes to Jonny Greenwood whose musical score perfectly sets the mood without resorting to pyrotechnics. Even small things are done expertly, such as taking Keith Carradine out of his usual Western hero/villain role and casting him as Montana’s governor.
From start to finish, The Power of the Dog is a masterpiece.
Rob Weir
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