The movie opens as a terrified young woman, barefoot, races across the freezing snow-covered pasture. She soon falls dead, her lungs burst by the cold. Next appears park ranger Cory Lambert, clad in snow camouflage gear, who aims and shoots two wolves about to attack a herd of sheep.
The hunted and the hunter.
I tuned into Netflix to watch 1883 the other night because I noticed it was created by Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote and directed Wind River (2017), which I loved the first time, and so reminded me to view it again and share with you.
This movie is basically a murder mystery set in the Wind River Indian Reservation in wintry Montana. There are two stories in this film, two separate murders, and they affect all the people they knew. Sheridan weaves in and out of both so seamlessly and heartbreakingly, vibrating with suspense, that it’s hard to take your eyes off the screen.
Cory played by Jeremy Renner answers “I’m a hunter” when someone asks him his job. He hunts predators to protect the domestic animals and the native wildlife. He dispatches them readily when he finds them about to attack. He accepts his role as protector without hatred or regret, nobly even. When he finds the murdered native girl, and she is found to have been raped, the FBI comes in asks him to use those very skills to find her killer. The two stories finally meet in Act 3 when the reticent Cory finally reveals the connection of the two murdered girls. I won’t spoil the ending, but it is as fitting as any possible.
The soundtrack by Nick Cave and collaborator Warren Ellis, lends a haunting lyrical mood to the movie, making it seem like a ghost story—and to be sure, the ghosts of these murdered girls haunt everyone. Unlike most scores, it doesn’t announce any of the upcoming plot twists but becomes rather another character in the story, like the witches in Joel Coen’s Macbeth, who watch the earthly humans grapple with what fate has already ordered. In this story, as in any great heroic story, there is no escape from the hand you are dealt. What matters is how you go on deal with your fate, with honor or disgrace.
Sheridan also wrote or directed Sicario and Hell or High Water, both very good, but Wind River steals my heart and my soul.