Women very rarely hold their own in Westerns. So much of the time they are either A) damsels in distress, B) whores at the disposal of wandering vigilantes, or C) caricatured heroes in the masculine mould. There are very few strong women in the Western genre, and it's largely because filmmakers try to put them in the intrinsically male role. Sam Raimi succeeded with The Quick And The Dead (1995) but there are significantly more failures - Cat Ballou (Silverstein, 1965) and Bandidas (Rønning, Sandberg, 2006) I'm looking at you, even if that latter film is a parody of sorts. It's not that women can't handle the roles - quite the opposite, as Sharon Stone proved in Raimi's aforementioned slapdash Spaghetti homage. There's also something to be said for Mattie Ross in True Grit - especially the latest incarnation by the Coen Brothers (2010). So thank the lord we have a film like South Of Heaven, West Of Hell. It's true that Fonda is probably only in the film because she was, at the time, dating country star Dwight Yoakam, a wonderfully talented musician who here takes writer/director/composer/lead actor credits. A little self indulgent? Yes, but this critically panned revisionist tale has more to offer than just vanity...
It was one of the most critically panned films of 2000 and sank without a trace on VHS, resurfacing on an all but ignored DVD transfer a few years ago. The film currently sits at 17% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but it's really much more worthy of your time than most would have you believe. For one it's a smart blend of classic genre tropes and revisionist ideas which, like the best Westerns, takes time to unfold. It's Tucson, 1900, and the film opens on Christmas Eve with Marshall Valentine Casey (Yoakam) being shot and left for dead by his old adoptive family - a vagabond group of outlaws which he used to be a part of. He recovers and a year later moves with his law partner to a small town where he falls in love with the mysterious Adalyne (Fonda). But his ex-family, The Henry Clan, return and that assortment of robbers and murderers led by Taylor (Vince Vaughn) threaten the safety of Casey and his new love. He realizes what he must do to protect those close to him, and retribution becomes a necessity.
There are some really lovely and unique moments in the film, not least the sight of a downtrodden ghost town in blazing heat being adorned by decorative banners and a Christmas tree. It's a peculiar image, which Yoakam never overplays. His brand of country guitar plucking also serves the tone of the piece, and while the main suite of the score (a simple piano melody) couldn't be further from Morricone, it seems just as at home in the naked landscape of good vs. evil and the blurred line inbetween. Yoakam also indulges his personal sensibilities and gives a film a kind of oddball hillbilly quality, especially in the look of sharp suited drifter Brig. Smalls (Billy Bob Thornton). With a blue suit and long blonde hair he's the sort of character who ponders a sentence as he protractedly chews on it, and would seem just as at home on the set of Crazy Heart (Cooper, 2009). The dialogue is lyrically structured to the point that the film feels almost like an album - it consists of several vignettes which comprise the tracks. In this sense South Of Heaven, West Of Hell is a concept album, and as a director Yoakam becomes auteur. Some of the vignettes are long and packed with character - they may seem pointless but they paint the landscape and explore themes and character types in the way that a song would; poetically. Some are broader and more comical - like the highly amusing farce involving Bud Cort, which for me is the highlight of the film, ending on an amusing teeth pulling set-piece. And the film, shot by DoP James Glennon (who also lensed episodes of Deadwood), looks beautiful, as does the lady of the feature herself, and the reason why you've read this far...
The reason I discussed the role of women in Westerns at the beginning of this review was for one simple reason: South Of Heaven, West Of Hell does not adhere to cliché or formula and broadly portray a female caricature; the damsel, whore or posturing male clone. Adalyne is just a real person - a person of heart and goodness, and human flaws. And that makes Casey's affections for her all the more grounded and understandable. As with all of her performances Fonda shows an incredible warmth and depth of feeling in her portrayal of Adalyne. She doesn't have the best of material to work with and many of her scenes are spent playing off other actors, but she is undeniably the heart of the piece. Casey's only ever known violence in his life - at first he inflicted it, and now he seeks to punish it. He's a lonely soul; the classic quiet man, who has a sense of place and duty. All around him there is bloodshed. Adalyne gives him a sense of purpose, and genuine romance. She is soft spoken and mannered, and Fonda instills her with a sense of pride - but also hides a dark past behind her eyes. Her best scene comes in a balloon ride with Casey at the midway point. He's afraid of heights and cowers in the corner of the balloon - but her radiant smile ensures he never wants to come down. She's meek and charming, and painted with delicate strokes. Her physical presence is also powerful in a film of striding macho performances - the clicking of heels, kicking of dirt and cocking of revolvers is not a sound that surrounds her. Hers is a path of grace, but for that she stands out. It also means that when she is forced to hold her own in a hostage situation her actions are all the more powerful - when she stabs Uncle Jude (Michael Jeter) in the groin with a broken lamp, a determined ferocity consumes her. Underplayed is the word that comes to mind, but then, when was Fonda one for overplaying? There are subtleties and nuances to her turn, and in the final scenes where she looks over the Arizona mountains she is not a victim but a fractured woman - and that's a rare sight in the Western.
It's not the best Western of the last twenty years (the action scenes could have done with some brushing up) but as a kind of post-Tarantino, concept album revisionist Western, it stands as a unique and often captivating experience. It's heavy on language and mood; conversation set-pieces drifting in and out of acts of unconscious violence. Some of it is a little ripe, some of it is plain bad, and it's certainly overlong. But Fonda (a diverse actress at the very least) shines in the role of a strong woman trying her hardest to survive and protect in a barren wasteland of violence. Without her, the whole thing sinks. With her, it has heart...
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