Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichardt must have a strong working relationship. With the exception of her first film River of Grass, and 2016’s Certain Women, they have collaborated on every one of her feature films. Beginning with her 2006 adaptation of his short story Old Joy, he co-wrote Wendy and Lucy with her, based on another one of his stories, then went on to write Meek’s Cutoff and Night Moves. First Cow, which they again wrote together is an adaptation of his 2004 debut novel The Half Life, and fits in perfectly in their combined oeuvre. Like Meek’s Cutoff it is a period film, set in the fur trade era Oregon Territory (a region she seems consistently compelled by), and like Old Joy is about a close male friendship in the wilderness.
But it is by no means a retread of either of those films. First Cow is the story of a nineteenth century trapper and cook, “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro) who teams up with a Chinese immigrant he saved called King Lu (Orion Lee) to sell baked goods at a trading post using milk stolen from the wealthy landowners’ coveted Jersey cow. This premise sounds downright comical, as does the films’ title; giving the impression of a goofy period buddy comedy whereby a pair of cunning schemers pull one over on the self-righteous and pompous authority figure (here played with characteristic glee by Toby Jones). And while the movie isn’t not funny -there is a scene where they sell him some baked goods from his own cow- the movie takes its subject matter a lot more serious than one might expect. You might be tempted to think this is the terrible misappropriation of tone that it sounds like, but in practice it works rather well.
Reichardt has always been extraordinarily good at identifying and showcasing her characters’ humanity regardless of context. It’s one of the big things that made Certain Women so good. She allows her audience to simmer in their head space, understand their perspective no matter what their circumstances are or how unrelatable their attitude may otherwise be. And she does it all with such careful subtlety that you might not realize immediately. First Cow isn’t even the first time she’s gone deeper with a seemingly comedic premise -Wendy and Lucy and even Night Moves could easily have been comedies, but she decided to approach those stories with honesty and from a place of genuine interest. Objectively, Cookie is something of an innocent idiot, a man from Maryland out of his depth in this environment, who just wanders through it meagerly. He has little agency of his own and is very rarely assertive. First Cow though, lets us feel his pride in his cooking, his embarrassment about this against the more masculine tendencies of his fellow traders, his anxiety around his ineptitude, and his fear about the trade he has wound up in -all before the cow comes into play.
And he is evenly matched with the relatively more extroverted King Lu, who is no less empathetic. A man who fled North China and has been around the world, he is the brains to Cookie’s heart, and together they make for a vital team and quite a memorable friendship. Both are outsiders to this world and its toxic masculine ideals, and both need each other to survive in it; it is this that propels the movie forward. Reichardt keeps the affection of their relationship beneath the surface but it’s strongly felt regardless, and both actors do a tremendous job realizing it. Even their appearances compliment each other by their contrasts, Cookie in his poor and simple rags, King in his fine metropolitan wares somewhat inappropriate to his station in life. While Magaro is great as the sweet and shabby Cookie, it’s Lee who’s the real revelation of the movie in a performance that is equal parts charming and subtle. Essentially, he is to this movie what Lily Gladstone (who makes a small but welcome appearance) was to Certain Women. Reichardt knows who to turn to for striking characters to fill out her world, as the cast also includes in minor roles Ewen Bremner, Scott Shepherd and a surprising Gary Farmer of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. Alia Shawkat shows up briefly at the beginning for a scene set in the present that forecasts the end of the story; and appearing in a cameo is the late Rene Auberjonois in perhaps a nod to his role in McCabe & Mrs. Miller for one of his last films.
First Cow is an immensely patient film, which yes, is just a way of saying that it’s slow. It’s nearly an hour in when Cookie and King first milk that cow at night. Reichardt’s slowness though isn’t that of Bresson or Tarkovsky. She doesn’t hold on shots for minutes at a time or fixate on abstract imagery. She takes in the mundane, but only as it relates to the characters and their relationship to their environment. It’s a hallmark of her minimalist style. Primarily though, her slowness creates a mood that intricately weaves a sharper connection between audience and characters and place. There’s not an abundance of dialogue in this film, and there are many scenes of the pair just making their living: Cookie cooking for instance -and the commitment to the detail makes the atmosphere come alive. Sections of this movie really evoked for me that feeling of being in a camp-out; in that solitude in the woods, complete with the sounds of babbling brooks and unidentifiable birds flocking overhead.
It’s a serene movie. But it’s also an endearing one. First Cow may not be Reichardt’s best feature, but it speaks to an increasingly interesting direction of her work that I’m eager to see evolve. Where and how is she going to transport us next? And if she and Jonathan Raymond are a dream team, I see no reason they shouldn’t keep coming together.
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