isabelle1955
It's taken me a while to catch up with this intriguing movie. Switching on the subtitles second time around, to translate the German, was a revelation. Any movie which makes me put my brain in gear (a novel idea in current cinema) can't be bad; I like being intrigued. But don't watch Dust if you are looking for an easy ride. Somewhere I read this rather pompous assessment: "this film should not be judged according to standardised measures used when conventionally analysing a Hollywood style movie". .Well OK. But if you can find it on the shelf of your local video store then I'm afraid it IS going to be judged by those standards. Personally I think the story of Luke and Elijah stands up perfectly well. I'm not so certain about the rest.The obvious stylistic comparisons are with Sergio Leoni's Spaghetti Westerns, (I've seen Dust described as a Baklava Western, but that's too easy). Spaghetti Western meets Magical Realism, with some heavy-handed irony about contemporary Balkans politics thrown in? A complex tale of love, revenge and redemption set across generations and continents, exploring storytelling, myth and the tragedy of war? Or could it just be a confusing movie told in flashback that doesn't quite work. Who knows? Maybe all of the above. Dust's an interesting tale set in a corner of Europe little explored in mainstream western cinema. Had they stuck with the tale set in Macedonia, it would have worked better. But this is a film that tries to be all things to all people, not quite pulling it off.Director Milcho Manchevski uses our generally poor understanding of this region's troubled history to great effect. It's hard to tell who is killing who and why. But that's the point. Joe Average involved in this thuggery had probably long since lost track of who did what to whom and why in the endless rounds of attack and counter attack. My own difficulty in distinguishing baddies from goodies among the factions is probably a fair reflection of the situation that existed on the ground (in this and many other wars), where atrocities abound on all sides, greed rules, and mostly it's the poor and downtrodden who end up dead.Into this confused mix comes Luke (David Wenham), an amoral American cowboy escaping his past, who sees an opportunity to use his killing skills to exploit the situation and make some money as a bounty hunter. The movie is set between the 19th and 20th centuries, and Luke, a man who lives and dies by the gun, is a metaphor for the transition from the old world to the modern world. He is told at one point, "The day you see a flying machine you'll know you're a dead man". But Luke can't understand, because he doesn't speak the language, literally or figuratively. Chasing Luke, comes his younger brother Elijah (Joseph Fiennes), bent on retribution for the wrong Luke did to him back home. Their story unfolds years later, told in flashback through the revelations of an old woman dying in New York, to a modern thug Edge (wonderful Adrian Lester) who has broken into her apartment thieving, and gotten more than he bargained for when she pistol whips him into submission, forcing him to listen to her ramblings. Her link to the story is apparent by the end.The story itself, although interesting and original, is full of holes. Even accepting the unlikely scenario of country boy, monosyllabic Luke winding up in the Balkans, I never could quite accept how easily Elijah tracked him down across Europe. I was irritated by Luke's magical bullets, taking out 6 people at a time from an astonishing range, while he himself survived everything thrown at him. And Edge, the thug with a heart of gold, taking granny's ashes back to Macedonia at the end almost blew the whole thing for me. This was not a movie that required a feel good ending. Giving it one was a cop out. It mystifies me why Manchevski introduced such cliché into what had been, up until then, an interesting if flawed film.Despite my frustrations, it would be petty of me to suggest that the flaws ruin this movie. They don't. In Macedonia, Manchevski is working in his own land and it shows. It's a stunning movie to look at, beautifully photographed, well produced and edited, with some nice visual details, (Luke bleeding picturesquely across the Karst limestone landscape comes readily to mind), and the villages and peasants look appropriately grubby. The Macedonian locations are worth the rental price alone. The copious blood, the fly blown corpses and food (this is not a movie for the weak of stomach) are reminiscent of the best spaghetti westerns, and the movie has enough interesting characters to keep the audience engaged. I wanted to know where it was going, how it would end and whether Luke could find redemption.As for the performances, I've seen Joseph Fiennes do better work but he has little to do here beyond being gruff and biblical. However, I thought this was one of David Wenham's most interesting roles. If this guy isn't a bigger name in America, I have to assume it's because he doesn't want to be. He has a really menacing presence in this role. We've seen David Wenham do noble (LOTR), touchingly hopeless (Getting' Square), bemused and cute (Better than Sex), drowning emotionally (After the Deluge) and coolly efficient (The Bank). Here we see he can play menacing too, although I found his period American accent erratic, so I'm glad the emphasis was on his physical acting rather than his dialogue. It was perhaps disappointing that the younger women were given little of consequence to do beyond looking symbolic, displaying their pretty bodies and tenderly mopping wounds, but Rosemary Murphy was feisty as the old lady in New York. Well worth watching
vegasite
Eventually disappointed and confused by this flick, I have to give credit for the wonderful photography and a few good performances, particularly Adrian Lester.The violent scenes seemed an homage to "The Wild Bunch" and the music was quite good.This back and forward telling of the story spoiled the fluidity , confused things and trivialized the integrity of the story that wavered at the whim of the story teller.I have to ask WHY this woman had spent her life in poverty while hiding a kabillion dollars in gold in. . . .And why did the brothers have such animosity toward one another?Yikes!I admit, I now would like to see more of the director's work.
SALUDES
`Dust' is a movie filled with blood, guts, death, doom and despair. In fact, one would be hard pressed to think of a movie with a more depressing story line than this one. The body count is very high, and you can believe it when I say no one dies pretty in this movie. So, you don't want to watch it during dinner.The basic plot is that of two cowboy brothers during the late 1900s; one of a good heart, and one with not such a good heart. However, there are a multitude of sub stories which finally come together in the end. It's just getting to the ultimate tie in at the end of the movie, without getting somewhat confused, that's hard. The story is told from the point of view of an old woman, living in the present day, in flashback form, as she describes events that took place at the turn of the last century. Every few minutes, the story line shifts from character to character and time to time. These constant jumps make the movie a bit hard to keep up with, and is the main flaw in the film.Even though the movie is confusing, it does all come together in the end. And at the end, one feels a certain satisfaction when that little `aw, now I get it' light comes on; and that little light makes `Dust' almost worth watching.
