Director Kelly Reichardt edited her own film herself, and the rhythm at the beginning of her 19th-century frontier drama The First Cow was bizarre, if not unpredictable. You can't predict when she'll be cut off or where she'll stay... Or hang out, depending on your patience with the elderly. You may find your mind wandering... Until she wakes you up with a revelation, a flash of connection between two souls, or the first stirring of fear. That's when you feel most alive — when you find her wavelength, something unfathomable suddenly becomes crystal clear. —David Edelstein
Hello everyone, the movie I bring to you today is "The First Cow". This American alternative Western, which was shortlisted for the main competition section of the Berlin Film Festival at the beginning of the year, shows the audience the special friendship and broken American dream of two men during the westward expansion movement in the early 19th century. Adapted by Reichardt and her regular writing partner Jon Raymond, from the latter's 2004 novel Half-Life.
Orion Lee (left) and John Margaro in the film The First Cow.
The touching story is in the final stills of director Kelly Reichardt, but it's completely spoiler-free — at least not in the traditional sense. It's a story about friendship. Like many films, the film foreshadows its own ending from the outset. The story begins with a grim discovery roughly somewhere in the present-day State of Oregon, USA, and then rewinds about two centuries to the less stable 1820s, injecting a retrospective shimmer of suspense, fear, and tragedy into the story of the Old West.
Some viewers don't like this framing device, which feels like a narrative with a carrot hanging over it — as if the journey wouldn't be so fun if we didn't know the destination yet. But Reichardt, who has resisted the obvious throughout her career, avoided the trap with her usual gritty artistry. Even if you think you know the ending of the story, you might be surprised at how much she trusts the audience's imagination. Fascinating history, like fascinating historical fiction, is never just a simple record of whose events happened.
Let's enter that world with Otis Figowitz (John Magaro), a gentle-eyed, soft-spoken man in his 30s who cooks (and earns the nickname "Cookie") for a group of fur catchers who travel through Oregon Territory. In this overgrown woodland, he cultivated poor culinary skills in Boston, where only berries and mushrooms were left to supplement their dwindling rations, and his hangar employers were abusive. But Margaro's affectionate and humble performance conveys the attitude of a man who is committed to his profession and can practice it as best he can even under these unforgiving conditions.
He is also an instinctively decent and compassionate figure. One night, he meets a Chinese immigrant, King Lu (Orion Lee), who hides in the bushes and hides from some tough guys. But even though he was shivering naked in the cold, Lu was clearly keen and resourceful, with a talent for sneaking behind the scenes that gave him more courage than anyone else to take risks. Shortly after Cookie provides him with food and shelter and helps him on his way, the two will reunite in a shantytown where Lu has a cabin. There, they became roommates and forged friendships, eventually becoming working partners.
The cow was ordered by The chief of the land, Factor. King Lu figured out how to make money selling pancakes, but he needed the cow's milk to enhance the taste of the cake, and Cookie discussed with King Lu and decided to steal milk at night.
The biscuits of the two sold very well, so they stole them more and more frequently. Not surprisingly, they were eventually discovered, attracting The Hunt for Them...
Finally, the exhausted Cookie and King Lu both closed their eyes one after another in the woods...
Partners and friends
This partnership began with the emergence of the first cow in the Oregon Territory, the property of a wealthy, hypocritical and pretentious British landowner Chief Factor (a very nuanced Toby Jones). The arrival of this magnificent creature, as she floated down the barge, chewing her rumination with solemn bewilderment, was both a status symbol and a harbinger of progress for the chief factor—a proud declaration that this difficult terrain could be tamed and eventually yielded to prosperity. For the poor like Cookie and King Lu, the cow represents an opportunity, an opportunity to realize their own meager claims on the American dream.
The relationship between cookies and King Lu is precisely the relationship between craftsmanship and business acumen, between mastering a difficult craft and the entrepreneurial spirit required to exploit it. (King-Lu was both the tactical brain of the operation and a recognized foreigner, and everyone ignored and underestimated this, which was helpful.) They are desperate figures with clear feelings, but also lack cheap triumphalism or ascension. Their adventures are doomed to no good ending, and not all participants benefit equally.
And this big-eyed brown cow, named Ive, no less than Cookie and King Lu, exhibits understated wit and cunning gravity. Some of the quietest and most touching exchanges in the film take place between cows and biscuits, where they have friendly, respectful conversations. Life is not particularly friendly to any of them. Cookie's relationship with King Lu, while also complex, echoes their rapportunistic relationship, with whom he has a platonic but unconventional family arrangement and is eager to build his own incredible success story.
westward
Toby Jones in the movie The First Cow
The American West has long been considered a land of hope and fertility, but here the West is once again a region of uncertainty, danger, and extreme scarcity, where the myth of apocalyptic destiny is obscured, even ridiculed, by harsh realities.
It is suggested that readers probably should not see First Cow on an empty stomach (or have no plans to order takeout afterwards). Arguably, every unfolding of the plot is an ingenious and delightful surprise, and it is perhaps the most suspenseful and entertaining demonstration of Reichardt's strict attention to detail – her patient, authentic and extraordinary cinematic charm for the workings of the process and details. All of this makes First Cow both a fascinating loser story and a brilliant demonstration of the bravery and ingenuity of American business in action.
Reichardt's film jokingly lashed out at these differences, but it's too honest to pretend they don't exist. The deep, lingering pain of First Cow comes from the recognition that the brutal divisions of a world that are still in the process of formation have been portrayed so deeply. Almost everyone here has almost nothing, and what little they have—a pair of shiny boots, a handful of silverware, a greasy cake, a rare friend—can be easily taken away.