Ride the High Country

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY is one of the best movies I've seen all year. I'm having trouble figuring out where to begin writing about it.

Let's start with the location. California's Inyo National Forest is one of the most beautiful places in the world, particularly in the fall, when the aspen groves turn luminous yellow. This is the high country for which the film is named, and director Sam Peckinpah and DP Lucien Ballard shoot it so vividly, so marvelously, that I could
practically smell the sagebrush and feel the bite in the air.

Next, we'll roll into the story. The brief summary, "Old friends ride into the mountains to bring back a shipment of gold, but greed threatens to tear them apart," sounds so TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE that it led me to pass this film by. But there's so much more to this film than that summary, so much more unexpected grace and brutality, so much more humor and truth, that a summary does it scant justice. This is a film about who we are and who we want to be; it's the stuff of great drama, and it's realized greatly.

That realization can't happen without performances to give it life, and Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea anchor this movie by giving us men who've been heroes and scoundrels and who may have one or more switches still inside them. Their lives play out in a world that's moving on, and these men need to learn to move on with it, if they can. Mariette Hartley and Ron Starr represent the new generation, people with lots of mistakes still to make, and it's a pleasure to watch their characters get their feet under them.

This is a beautiful, exciting film. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I came to care about these people and invest in their choices. I made time to see RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and it was time well spent.

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA as a movie about constructs. More specifically, I see it as a movie about the constructs we use to give shape to our lives, and the ways in which he hold fast to those constructs even in the face of their absurdity. During the picnic, I saw two deeply damaged people trying to love each other; two people aware that a relationship was impossible, yet willing to believe in their hopes (if only for a little while).

Elita knows that Bennie knows that Garcia is her true love, and she knows that Bennie's trying to find Garcia for some malevolent purpose. Further, she knows that Bennie's no good -that no matter how much money he makes, it's all going to pass through his hands anyway. Still, she pressures him to propose to her, and she chooses to believe in her future by accepting his proposal. Later, when they're in Garcia's town, she points out that there's a church there. When Bennie doesn't so much refuse to follow through on his commitment as let it slide by him, Elita still chooses to believe.

Only when the construct is safely unattainable does Benny fully invest himself in it. When he does, he finds that the construct gives him something to live for and, perhaps more importantly, something to die for. We see this first glimmer of this fuller Bennie in the picnic scene, as he takes the first steps from nihilism to belief. Elita knows that belief will probably not end well, but she's willing to believe anyway. This is her wisdom and her strength.