Meek's Cutoff at the New York Film Festival

Kelly Reichardt's stunningly shot, largely plotless new movie gives us a Western for our time: a bedraggled liar named Meek is attempting to lead three families through the punishing, barren landscape of eastern Oregon. As she explained during the Q-and-A, "Being led into the desert by a leader who may not know what he's doing somehow seemed relevant." That got a big laugh from the New York Film Festival attendees.

Fiercely independent, Reichardt mostly balked at interacting with the audience, refusing to answer questions she didn't like. She was so charming about it, and Meek's Cutoff is so thoroughly unique, that everyone forgave her. The movie focuses on monotony --- of the landscape, of the labor, of the walking. Even as it fails, due to lack of character development, to truly tell a Western from a woman's perspective, it succeeds as an allegory, perhaps too well: like its contemporary analogue, the movie doesn't really end, preferring instead to simply stop.

Photo: thanks