Some filmmakers—be they full-fledged auteurs or studio journeymen—seem to reinvent themselves regularly, whether consciously or out of necessity, each new film different from the last. On the other hand, there are filmmakers whose oeuvres are remarkably consistent, exploring the same formal, thematic, and emotional terrain over and over again, to varied effect. A recent example of this kind of filmmaker is the American independent writer-director Kelly Reichardt. Reichardt’s seven features contain numerous throughlines and comprise an astoundingly lucid body of work. Her latest, First Cow, represents a marked refinement of an already exquisite viewpoint, and it shows the filmmaker evolving even as she treads familiar ground.
First Cow is especially accomplished in its aesthetic. It was shot on 35-millimeter film by Christopher Blauvelt, who’s been the cinematographer on all of Reichardt’s films since Meek’s Cutoff. Like that film, it was shot in 1.37:1, otherwise known as the Academy ratio; in both films, the frame’s square shape actually heightens a sense of visual inclusion. In First Cow, Reichardt contemplates the towering forests of Oregon as well as the full-bodied intricacies of Cookie and King-Lu’s day-to-day laborings. At times I was reminded of the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose meditations on natural and human environments evoke a calm that’s at once peaceful and precarious. The film opens with a line from William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell—“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship”—which epitomizes that dichotomy.
Dir. Kelly Reichardt, PG-13, 125 min. Landmark Century Cinema
