Who would have thought that the retirement of the Cheyenne leader could turn into a headache comparable to saving Private Ryan. The Western Hostiles (Hostiles, 2017) will try to tell us how it turned out that way. When a group of brave travelers goes on an expedition and suffers losses along the way – this is called “fantasy”! And the journey of Americans on American soil in 1892 is a real fantasy.
Especially for Native Americans… and one Frenchman performed by Timothy Chalamet, who is made to understand in the very first scene that he does not fit into the entourage. But this is necessary, because the mission, one might say, is image-based, and if you burden the squad with a “green staff”, then to the full. Let the “Canadian” stay with us instead of the elf archer, especially since he seems to be able to cook. The kit also includes a West Point graduate and a Negro who knows how to ride.
It's a lousy deal
Things are not going smoothly inside the core of the expedition team either. Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale), in his words, has “a whole cartridge bag of reasons” to dislike the family of Indians whom he was ordered to accompany. In this case, he risks his own pension. His loyal colleague Sergeant Thomas Mets (Rory Cochrane) was officially diagnosed with cuckoo disorder with the beautiful Greek name “melancholia” after another raid (or binge). On this occasion, they even seized a badge, a pistol and spurs. But the captain decides that a walk through the places of military glory will have a life-giving effect on the sad dwarf. Blocker bribes the watchman and returns his belt and revolver to the sergeant. It is understandable: among the voluntarily resettled, at least two wield a hunting knife * better than a spoon – which the captain is sure of, because he fought against them during the Indian Wars. Sergeant Mets, therefore, is vital on the road to cover the rear. Or to confirm that the escorted were the victim of an accident.
* Strange-looking wide knives, by the way, are historically correct army US model 1880 Springfield hunting knife.
As you might have guessed, the expulsion of the family of a terminally ill leader from the dungeon to the ancestral land is just the plot of the film. What I didn’t realize after watching the film was that the expedition on the way from New Mexico to Montana had to cross the states of Colorado and Wyoming, and travel about 1000 km in a straight line. I.e. the actions of the film do not fit into the weekend, and sudden epiphanies do not come just like that.
– This blouse is not red enough yet!
Here, perhaps, we turn to Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), who, by the will of fate, joins the squad. Of course, I understand that Mr. Quaid dreamed of planting corn in a picturesque place recently wrung from the Mexicans. But to build a farm on the outskirts without farmhands, having a wife and three young children? Hmm… it’s strange that they got acquainted with the Comanches, having already had a decent enough house, a barn and a paddock with horses that should have been released to meet a gang of Indians, instead of, pretending to be Suvorov, running at them with a carbine. So Mrs. Quaid became a widow.
And just after the life of this woman went according to the worst scenario, she is discovered by our cavalry detachment, which could easily have passed by if Mr. Quaid had not been lying in front of the burned house, pierced by an arrow. The acting duo of Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike appears on the screen, who were not taught to play badly, but their game is unlikely to reach the genius in this picture. All the makings for a romantic line seem to be there, however, the Hostile scenario is simply stuffed with cruel hopeless shit that will fall on their heads. Maybe I’m overreacting, but the heroine changes dresses when the previous one is stained with someone’s blood. But it’s not a slasher either.
The cavalry, as always, is on time
Violence, in general, characteristic of tapes with cowboys and Indians, is either given here without relish (“suddenly a bullet flew by, and that”) or even hides from the viewer, happening somewhere behind the scenes or the tent flap. The stingy experiences of people who have hardened either in twenty years of service, or in ten years of wandering, or in one cursed day come to the fore. And this feels authentic, because indeed, to some extent the characters have lost the skill of normal communication (from our philistine point of view).
“Jesus was an Indian!” – that’s what the followers of the Spirit Dance cult believed. A couple of lean years, difficult conditions on reservations and the extermination of bison greatly influenced the beliefs of the Lakota Indians, giving rise to a heresy in which Jesus will certainly appear on Earth surrounded by ancestral spirits, the whites will disappear, and the bison population will recover. It was with the fugitive sectarians that our soldiers came together in battle in the winter of 1890. The Wounded Knee Creek massacre is mentioned by Phil Wills (Ben Foster‘s character). There was no more valor there than in the shooting of the parishioners of the Baptist church. That is, yes, the captain, the sergeant and their chained comrade really killed the frozen and hunted men, women and children. It turned out 300 “very good” Indians. And the military was rewarded for this.
The Comanches are attacking
Here is a certificate to clarify the relationship between the prisoner (for the murder of an Indian family) and his colleague, who is taking him to the gallows. The Northern Cheyenne were not good either, and were considered very brave and skilled warriors. Detachments of the Morning Star and the Little Wolf (89 warriors and 146 women and children) in September 1879, pursued by the army, made their way from the southern territories to Montana. It was thanks to their persistence that a reservation appeared in Montana, to which the Yellow Hawk and his household could theoretically return.
And their opponent and the hero of the Frontier, General Ranald S. Mackenzie, could well have become a source of inspiration for drawing a Blocker, because he commanded a black regiment and drove the Apache Comanches to the Mexican border (and even a little beyond it). Just before his retirement, having already noticed the plot and the bride, he fell out of the van, which led to a sharp clouding of reason and death at the age of 48. So hostage leaders and crazy veterans are not fairy tales.
“And if we want to have somewhere to go back to
It’s time to go home.”
Speaking of songs. In addition to the soundtrack, which can’t be called anything but background, the song How Shall A Sparrow Fly by country musician Ryan Bingham (played by Sergeant Paul Malloy) sounds in Hostile.
Ryan Bingham – How Shall A Sparrow Fly
This is not the first episode of his collaboration with director Scott Cooper. The composition The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart got them an Oscar.
The cameraman Masanobu Takayanagi provided the film with very picturesque plans that reminded the backgrounds of Miyazaki’s works – and there is no smell of arthouse, and originality is present. Beautiful, damn it, again more associations with fantasy.
Yellow Hawk, and don't ask me why
Conclusions:
What may not go: Suffering with conscience without visualizing the events of the recent past. For a person who is not equipped with knowledge about American ethnic strife, it is difficult to understand what Blocker and Mets are so worried about. (Do you hear – they don’t save on flashbacks!) The narrative will also not present any global surprises and discoveries. As an entertaining movie, it’s such a spectacle, because it seriously talks about a serious topic without hoaxes and Tarantino dialogues.
What happened: A story that goes into exchange, like Arturo Gatti. Cool work of the operator and the artist. The actors are in their places (although we are used to the less civilized inhabitants of the Frontier). Its own atmosphere – not dusty, not stinking of alcohol and horse offal, but not cloying either. There is almost no money in the feed.
The main idea is that it turns out to be a very unhappy prospect – having fought for 20 or even 30 years, to discover that you have much more in common with your enemy than with people who give orders and enjoy the fruits of your victories.
