Meek's Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt, new movie set in the old West
I mean, this isn't a great film, though neither a bad one, it is all a bit average.
The good parts first; at least their is some care in the long shots. The narrator is nicely relaxed, tensing up a bit. There are serious intentions here. The cinematography, one is forced to admit, can be rather good. Dramatic lighting, swatches and swathes of the desert. The light meter is set to high, allowing great details of the sky. Shooting the dark, well, very dark is certainly atmospheric, though we could do without the slightly desperate smash cuts to the sunlight. The sound is also nicely underplayed.
But this immediately leads us onto the negatives. Staging; no one ever crosses each other here. For all the Antonioni-ish standing apart, he moves his characters around, here there is something incredibly stagey, occassionally awkwardly Lumiere-like, about how they stand. This is perhaps a factor in why this film is so portentous; the yellow filters, or stock or whatever, can't get over the fact that the clothes aren't dirty enough, we never quite get over the fact that we have actors playing dress up. The dialogue doesn't help (mannered showing off, trying to shock and be 'realistic', Paul Dano ruthlessly annoying), and neither does the over-serious tone. This film is remarkably un-selfaware.
Our major visual problem (to go with the slightly boring thematics) is the shooting of the earth. As Dovzhenko makes obvious, you get more of the earth by less; shooting the sky. This film's screen is largely taken up by earth. The sky is only the top quarter. This doesn't give a great sense of grittiness and place (as perhaps intended), but looks oddly like a studio. The action is simply too high in the frame. Adding a quarter at the top by pushing the camera up a bit would, in my opinion, have greatly improved this film./
I would not like to say this film is bad; respect for creating a slow, visual kind of film. I'm just not sure it does it too well, and not too sure I care.