Gold

Having traveled from british columbia to dawson anyone could see that the initial terrain traveled in the film was inaccurate ... it looked more like the prairies of eastern alberta or eastern montana ... struggles today traveling from vancouver north aren't much different then 120 years ago ... its still about 2300 miles of rugged territory but possible with good planning and a lot of luck ... if you do it, be sure you get to the laird river crossing before late summer rains or you may find yourself mired down with mud ... get past that and dawson is easy ... you can pan for gold anywhere with recreation license ... if you don't have one be prepared to pay a steep fine

This film is outstanding in its portrayal of pioneer travel. The trials and tribulations, from the petty to the disastrous are endured as they really were endured. There always will be characters like Emily and Carl who will keep it together for the whole team, despite being just as worn out as everybody else. And the cruel blow at the end, bitter and crunching does not deter the survivor from going on.

I remember very well the feeling I had when I walked out of the theater after watching "Gold" : the movie was so realistic that I couldn't get out of my mind life's knocks during the particular era of the movie - and how lucky I was to live in Europe these days, have a secure job, a house and loving family.

"Gold" deals with a common story of the 19th century in North America : a trek of settlers decide to go up north in search for gold. The variety of characters makes it easy to identify with a least one : there is the lonely guy, the intriguing girl, the elderly couple, the crook ... the harshness of nature and human behavior point out their vulnerability but can also reveal their pugnacity and strong character.

Everything seems to match in "Gold" : the beautiful landscapes without any track of man, the very discreet music, the simplicity of these settlers' habits, the whole making this movie quite fascinating. I absolutely recommend it to anyone willing to see what a contemporary western could be.

Is this any good? Maybe. It illustrates the difficulty of being among the first in an area, and having to cope when there is no one else around for miles to help. Sometimes there is merely tension, sometimes danger, and sometimes the mood is just plain dismal.

Much of the acting is the same quality as what might be expected when a group sits around the table reading the script for the first time. Some acting is better than that. Even if the acting isn't all that good, the story is good, if you like this sort of thing. I wasn't all that entertained but this just isn't my type of movie.

Though this is supposedly set in 1896, a lot of the "music" sounds more like 1996. It might actually be appropriate but so much of it seems like just noise. Several scenes do benefit from an eerie new age sound that could actually have been performed during the time period, enhancing a very dismal atmosphere. Rossmann does play the banjo, but not nearly enough. He's pretty good, meaning real.

The scenery is beautiful. Some areas don't have trees and don't look quite as good, but that doesn't mean it's not still impressive. Personally I like the trees better than what looks like desert.

I forgot to look for the statement that no animals were harmed. Assuming there was one, a couple of horses do some good stunt work. Or at least someone does a good job of making it look like a horse had an impressive fall.

The movie doesn't quite live up to its title, but it's not too bad, I guess.

At the time when it was released - right in the middle of August - both in Germany and in France, Thomas Arslan's seventh film, 'Gold', appeared as the ugly duckling puddling clumsily around the pond of Summer movies. No cheap thrills, no big gags, no sultry scenes in this German UFO. Nothing about it to draw huge audiences. To begin with, it is a western, once a popular genre but today the ghost of what it used to be, at least in terms of box office (with the notable recent exception of 'Django Unchained'). Even worse, once again as far as box office is concerned, it is spoken in... Goethe's language! Okay, laugh you cynical money grabbers while it is still time! As for me, I would not be so surprised if this unusual effort should become a classic in the years to come. Agreed, associating the terms "German" and "western" looks incongruous at first sight but let's not forget there HAVE BEEN German "cowboy movies" before, mainly in the 1960's. Of course at the time they were generally nothing but undemanding adventure films meant for the young public, most of the time shot in Yugoslavia and aspiring to nothing higher than "to entertain". Whereas in the present case the ambition is different and while the end credits roll the viewer is now assured that the words "German" and western" can go together quite well. For 'Gold' is a little gem of a western movie, which is made apparent as of the first minutes through the feeling of authenticity it generates. For one thing, Arslan's rough and uncompromising work is shot entirely on location: all the places shown or mentioned (Baskerville, Clinton, Goldbridge as well as the wastelands of British Columbia) are the real ones. Moreover, the writer-director has worked from actual documents of the time (the Yukon gold rush of 1898), among which photographs, newspaper articles and pioneers' diaries. All that is shown is therefore realistic, not to say hyper realistic, from the horse tack to the weapons to the costumes to the train. Such a serious approach is commendable and would suffice to make 'Gold' a good film but there is even more to it than the true-to-life account of the journey of a group of German gold diggers, namely an allegoric dimension. Indeed, Beyond the facts reported lies a fable about the futility of man's efforts. Driven by the lust to get rich quick, the seven characters (with the one exception of the determined female hero... but for how long?) ride and suffer only to give up or die in the end. A sense of utter absurdity is thus gradually built, reinforced by the structure of the movie (almost all the protagonists disappear one by one in the manner of an Agatha Christie whodunit). I am pretty sure John Huston would have liked 'Gold' even if its tone is yet more pessimistic than his (for Huston, the final goal is absurd, only the adventure is worth living whereas for Arslan, the whole thing is purposeless). Well made, well interpreted by competent German actors (among whom Nina Hoss as the dark, untamed Emily Meyer), 'Gold' is an excellent surprise. Not totally flawless (a faster pace would not have gone amiss), it is nevertheless an outstanding achievement in its category. And quite an unexpected one at that!