It's a western to sure. But it doesn't have good guys and bad guys. Instead it is a character driven film that has grit and reality. In the first few sequences, you know what it felt like to be a prospector deep in the bowels of the earth. The only sound is the crunch and puncture of a pick axe fruitlessly chiseling away in the hopes of finding a little gold or silver ore.
This film would be good but a little tedious if it weren't for the music by Philip Glass. No melodramatic high pitches, no predictable foreshadowing of the next thing to come. The music does not drive the action. No, it illustrates each moment, each scene, each human experience. Especially poignant is the experience of sudden and permanent deafness after oil swells unexpectedly from the ground in a great black gusher. Glass' music mimics the isolated sound of the soul in a body that no longer has the distraction of birds and wind and idle gossip to distract. It's haunting. Like no other film I've seen, this film is made compelling by the unforgettable, yet un-hummable music.
It's an Upton Sinclair story from beginning to end--unrelenting in its direct gaze on the imperfections of the human character. A steely tale, an unforgiving narration of one man's journey through greed and love and doing the best he knows how to do. I give this film high marks for its resistance to the traditional narrative arc, to sentiment, to the easy way out. It's only weakness lies in the performance of Paul Dano--a young pup who couldn't pull off the layers required for a disingenuous, but nearly sincere, evangelical preacher. Forgive the film this one poor performance, and you'll enjoy the rare experience of a film that is about human beings as we know them.
Review by Sam Noir and Sarah M. Dennison
