‘Certain Women’ – beautiful minimalism
I would like to call attention to the work of the independent American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and her ”small, quiet films populated with the drifters and outcasts of the American west”. She says herself ”When I’m watching a film, if I feel there’s a dishonest overstimulation, just trying to scratch some itch or serve something up, I become untrusting of the filmmaker right away”.
Yesterday I watched her 2016 film Certain Women which confirmed to me that she is among the best of modern American film directors. The last thing you can say about Certain Women is that it overstimulates! On the contrary, it has an unusual slow pace, giving us lots of time to pay notice to facial expressions, to body postures and to silences between people. The camera takes long sweeps over the wintery Montana landscape, taking in the white-peaked mountains and the desolation of the place. She has the eye of a painter.
Certain Women is a triptych; it tells three stories of women who are trying to acquire something, but are faced with a reality that is less grand than they might have hoped for. True fulfilment is just beyond reach. In everyday life they are caught within their personal limitations that govern their grey realities. None of the stories leads to a conclusion. They leave us with observations about the realities of life, with thoughts about what might have happened if…, with questions about choices made in life. They describe another modern American experience of missed connections and profound desires that rarely are fulfilled.
This film might not be for everyone, but for me this is as close to what I hope for in a film. As one reviewer expressed so well: ”A gentle storytelling about ordinary people longing for connection and meaning as they face the challenges of another day.” Done in such a way that I need to mobilize all my senses to float along with the ebb and flow of the story and to destill the nourishing elements out of the personal experiences.
A last comment about Kristen Stewart, who plays one of the women in the stories, a bored lawyer teaching adult education classes. Having come to prominence through the Twilight movies she has (maybe therefore!) stayed somewhat beyond my horizon. In this film she excels with her minimalism. She makes it look so easy and unforced, just enough to see in her face and to hear in her voice.
By the way, earlier this week I was impressed by her role in Peter Sattler‘s debut film of 2014 CampX-Ray, in which she plays a soldier who is assigned to be a guard in Guantanamo Bay. An unusual Guantanamo Bay film which I also warmly recommend for its ethical issues.
Rinus Dec 2018
*Image posted for non commercial purposes under 'fair use' of copyright material in recommendation of the film
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Your perspective has me anxious to experience this film’s close-to-reality feeling for myself.
Yes, give it a try to close your eyes when the film starts and when you open them you find yourself within another reality, and then try to float with the ebb and flow of the story!
I saw this film on a plane (not always the best venue) and I was surprised by the pull each of the women had on me. As the review mentions the story is understated and yet I was empathetically drawn to each woman in the particulars of their lives. Wonderful storytelling!
Debbie and I watched the movie you recommended, “Certain Women” and indeed, it doesn’t overstimulate, but it is a deeply satisfying movie. It resonated long afterwards with me. No music, absolutely bare minimalism, as you said, and yet so real to life and saying through bodily expressions and landscape, etc. so much beyond words. I found the opening scene of the very long train blowing its horn in the distance and slowly coming into view a lovely symbol of the movement in the film itself. Even the heavy burden of freight cars, all looking identical, gave a foreshadowing of the story lines to follow.