Tina Mahler-Worth

I understand from reading all the other reviews that Tehran and Iran are presented inaccurately, but if I hadn.t seen this series I wouldn;t have begun to appreciate Iran at all since being American I have little exposure to Middle Eastern culture and countries. And I also understand from reading all the other reviews that there is a propaganda element in the series, not necessarily from the Israeli government, but from the filmmakers being they are Israeli. Nevertheless, this is to be expected from any movie that is about a political conflict, a bias or point of view is always to be expected. As long as you realize that. Apart from these criticisms, I appreciated the plot, or storyline, because it was truly suspenseful, and I loved the emphasis on common humanity that binds the two peoples. From the series, I believe that in the Middle East in general there may be more expressions of humanity on a day to day basis than here in U.S.

As a western, it has beautiful scenery. The story implies a parallel of the protagonist Jay's search for the woman he loves and the notion to "go West"--both romantic notions that lead to grave disappointment. The youth Jay is learning that not all is as it seems. It was quite jarring that the character Werner who seemed to be a really nice person--the ethnographer--turned out to be ruthless and heartless. And then, the seasoned frontiersman Silas we thought was a brute who is gruff and taciturn turns out to be a person with a good heart. But even despite the numerous disillusioning experiences, our youth does not relinquish his belief in the love he holds. Being this is a western, most of the characters are flat. And the events depicted are highly unlikely to ever happen--fantastic as opposed to realistic. As to authenticity, that is mostly in the scenery. One thing I think it fair to criticize is the confusion I felt in the beginning as to who the character Silas was. I thought Jay was the narrator, but it was Silas. It was confusing the way Silas suddenly appeared and took over as guide. Furthermore, as he was extremely taciturn by nature, it seemed like the whole movie was going to be people only talking short, abrupt sentences, and I thought: what kind of movie is this? Momentarily, I couldn't make sense of who was who and what was going on . Silas ultimately goes through a big transformation, and it would have been a richer movie had I understood he was going through the transformation at the time he was going through it . I perceived at a later point how the character of Silas who is the older man learns from the youth and metamorphosed to be more human, but while watching the movie, I did not perceive the change occurring but rather at certain point I felt I was being presented with the fact of it as fait accompli, and this was confusing. I knew Ben Mendelsohn was going to be in the movie and I was especially looking forward to his appearance. I wanted to see what he was going to do different in a western where all the characters are relatively flat and the villains are stereotyped. I believe he chose to go along with the stereotype somewhat. His pose in the first shot of him on the horse was identical to a stylized illustration I saw of him once except a cigar now instead of a cigarette. His coming around the bushes in a casual and confident manner was startling and somehow in a different register than the other two characters. His dialogue in the woods scene seemed a pastiche of attitudes he's played in the past--always interesting though. In the last scene, I thought he did something especially different. He brought you into the moment--into the room--by acting familiarly to Rose and showing concern for the details of how to accomplish the logistics of the murder in the particular situation: Commanding her to turn around. Telling her what to expect. And making the false promise "It won't hurt." You were also left with the impact of his point of view: Life is cheap. Murder is a necessary evil. The memory of this scene stayed with me.