Brimstone

The narrative is divided into four non-linear acts - three of them named after the titles of books of the Scriptures - that accompany the trajectory of violence that umbilical unites the lives of its two protagonists. Portraying, it can be said, his own conception of what hell would be, the Dutch director exposes a film with beautiful photography, beautiful performances and interesting narrative, although it lacks a bit of the metaphorical pretension that his script tries to convey.

Fortunately, this choice by Koolhoven was right to maintain a high level of interest in the viewer for practically the entire film, although the duration drags a little towards the end. Such a structure would also be useless if the director did not keep each chapter - which have totally different themes, actors, objectives and scenarios - in a strong and explicit unity. Balancing well the peculiarity of each part of Liz's life told in this way, the director manages to expose a whole highlighting the particularity of each part of the film. For such an admirable work, the use of different photographs, sometimes grayish, sometimes reddish, is only equal to the patience in the development of the characters. Whether in the brothel or with the pigs, the screenwriter manages to create a solid poetic unity, with rhymes and repetitions capable of merging every part of his protagonist's life, generating a constant evolution in our perception of what has already been seen. A prudent expansion that rests, certainly, on the shoulders of the excellent supporting cast, which runs through each arc dictating the tone of the film.

Brimstone is an interesting suspense thriller set in an Western given over to barbarism, inhabited by cruel and misogynistic men, where all sorts of injustices are approaching women, sexually trafficked by their own relatives or by strangers as if they were products in the shelves (nothing very different from what still happens in many places), without anyone moving a straw to end it - and the few heroes who try to break the shackles of this chain of exploitation and violence do not experience the glamor of fiction: they are easily killed. And forgotten. Brimstone is a tale about survival and an ode to resistance made by an unusual female protagonist who refuses to have her will subjugated again and again in the face of the endless cruelty of a fanatical and sadistic persecutor. The violence is brutal, incessant and over-the-top, making the viewer uncomfortable at all times, but it's a device that serves the story rather than just being used to provoke shock.

Dutch director Martin Koolhoven's camera is sinuous, always on the lookout, observing events through windows, cracks and half-open doors. Its aesthetic is that of a thriller - and the versatility of the western merges with the genre naturally. The slow, sonorous footsteps on the wooden thresholds are repeated throughout the film; the compositions that begin showing the characters from the ground as well, as well as the sideways glances and the crooked silences. The use of traveling is constant, but imperceptible: the movements of approaching and closing the shots are subtle. Silent background entrances - always with little depth of field - are recurrent and competently establish an ambience of mystery and tension that keep the viewer attentive to every detail. Tom Holkenborg's soundtrack, full of choirs and strings - with an emphasis on the characteristic gravity of the cellos - creates a cautious gothic sound that raises the slowness of the film's cinematographic construction to its throes.

The script signed by Martin Koolhoven himself is essential in creating the thriller atmosphere. The idea of telling the story in four non-linear acts plays alongside the narrative, which is essentially allegorical, and details about Liz and the Reverend slowly unfold. Dakota Fanning is terrified when Guy Pearce's voice echoes through the church in the first few minutes of the work. She has her back to the pulpit, fixing her daughter's clothes, and the camera slowly pans around her face. Her desperation is palpable, but the mystery of the real reason for her primal fear won't be revealed anytime soon. The Liz who observes the Reverend's intimidating presence in her living room, frightened through the cracks in the doors, is the same Joanna who, at 12 years of age, fearfully observes the violence her mother suffers. Parallelism is frequent in the composition of the chapters, and the force of some gestures and movements will only be fully understood at the end, looking back.

The script work, however, does not go unscathed. Although Guy Pearce gives the reverend an instant gravity, facilitated by Koolhoven's dark costume and camera that transform him into a kind of incarnate and mysterious evil, the character himself suffers from a stereotype of fanaticism that constantly takes him out of any situation. Three-dimensionality capable of sustaining him as an iconic figure. It is true that the reverend is atrocious, despicable and frightening, but it is also true that his psychopathic and hypocritical conviction does not go much further than that, which makes him, at certain moments in the film, a kind of unstoppable exterminator.

Guy Pearce takes the film for himself in the construction of an absolutely detestable and malevolent type of psychotic behavior and diabolical motivation. The Reverend has an extremely twisted and perverted view of Christianity, in which he seeks to validate (for himself) even sex with a child, and the monstrosity of his actions leads the character into an endless cycle of sin and violence. His persona seems to represent an ancient evil that walks the Earth as if he were the Devil incarnate that cannot be stopped by anyone. Pearce's performance is precise, with his husky voice and expressions that transition from apparent calm and benevolence to hatred and iniquity. The Reverend is a wolf in sheep's clothing - and the actor even howls insanely as he chases Liz and Sam. Dakota Fanning is another one that deserves applause, her character in almost the entire story communicates through signs and facial expressions, it's not something simple to do, but she does it in a way that we understand the intention and feelings of the character. His young version played by Emilia Jones also delivers a powerful performance for someone with little experience.

The film deals with religious fanaticism, misogyny and human self-improvement in a careful yet visceral way - the stomach-turning kind, almost literally. The right decision, in this sense, was to tell the story from the perspective of fragile Liz, something rarely seen in a western as brutal as this one. But what seems to be a great biblical metaphor in its beginnings falls, due to excessive pretension, in a beautiful journey of heroism and courage in the face of evil and suffering that permeate life, whether in the 19th or 21st century. Another important point to mention is that the plot is far from being a horror, many will be confused by the name Brimstone that it is about anything related to the supernatural, but nothing like that happens. The production focuses on a dramatic and intense thriller with a Western movie atmosphere, but the narrative doesn't stop shocking or bringing disturbing scenes.

Brimstone is disturbing and extremely violent. Its sequels are uncomfortable and cause distress. It makes explicit certain sequences with a lot of graphics, but insinuates, much more than it shows, others even more atrocious. Hangings, tortures, suicides, intestines tied around the necks of half-dead victims, tongues cut out (when we discover what happened to make Liz lose her tongue, the sequence is shocking, but cloudy: it is a scene that disturbs, but is not shown in details), torn bodies fed to pigs, sexual assaults on children... there is all sorts of evil in the lawless land where Liz tries to escape the persecution of her ruthless tormentor. And executioner in the most perfect etymological meaning of the word.

Many will complain about the two and a half hours of the film, I thought it was valid, of course there are some unnecessary plots, including one that I found completely uninteresting is the introduction of the character Samuel played by Kit Harington (Game Of Thrones), he even has some importance in the Liz's trajectory, but overall, her development was quite out of place. The last chapter also leaves much to be desired, I expected a more epic and painful conclusion, however, everything ends too easily. Everyone wanted to see the Reverend suffer more and pay for all the suffering he'd caused poor Liz. But, in a way, she finds her redemption through her daughter.

An apotheotic and exaggerated closing, loaded with the inks of metaphor, anticipates the true conclusion of the work. A ramification of a past event ends up in the protagonist's future, after the long duel - physical and mental - against the Reverend. Unjust and desperate, resolutely sad but inexorable. At the same time, he signals hopeful as the lights illuminate Elli's father's hovel so many years into the future. The narration of the first seconds of Brimstone is the same as the last moments. We finally understand the unfathomable opening scene that takes place under the waters of a lake. And the civilizing cycle continues unscathed, indifferent to the vicissitudes of that environment. Violence does not prevent life from moving forward, and a supposed evil atavism finds no place in the descendants of those people. They can live without the weight of the past, marching unabated towards the future, keeping in memory only the examples of intense strength and perseverance of a warrior woman, who never bowed before a cruel fate that seemed manifest - she preferred freedom, and he fought for it tirelessly, bearing whatever costs were necessary on this journey of pain and suffering.