Scott Cooper
Hostiles

The lush landscapes and pools of blood. The State, the law, the grudge and strength, the violence. A remarkable return to high levels for Scott Cooper, after the misstep of Black Mass, Hostiles picks up and amplifies all the virtues of Out of the Furnace. A beautiful film to watch, composed, elegant, and luxuriant. It fills the eyes with splendid landscapes, used as a perfect counterpoint to the human drama that unfolds during Captain Blocker's journey to escort a Cheyenne chief home in Montana.

A descent into hell, but to reach a redemption from the infinite faults of a white man who justifies violence with the State, the law. The trials to overcome will be many and painful, axe blows that amputate a bit at a time from the soul of the tough captain, magnificently portrayed by Christian Bale. A journey that is a detailed treatise on the arrogance of the white man, but more so, it is a vision of man and his many ways of justifying violence. Justice, the law, the State, and then revenge, the supposed necessity to defend one's territory. And violence as a process of desiccating the human soul: after a while, nothing is felt anymore, women, children of every age and color are killed without the slightest remorse. Yet the suffering continues when one's comrades die. Revenge is accepted only one way, when the Native Americans carry it out, it is just another demonstration of their evil nature.

A magnificent path of redemption, of understanding one's mistakes. Yet the State, as violent and reckless as it is, is trying to find rationality. Not without creating new contradictions and frictions: as the prisoner points out, the massacres committed alongside the captain are acceptable, the one committed afterwards, by him alone, is not. These are the sometimes tiresome limits and distinctions of a State that is solidifying, which is not yet stable in its conventions and impositions and therefore still widely needs a reckless and vengeful force. Arriving in Montana, the owners of a large estate tell the captain that there is no State there, no documents, no laws. Facing the refusal of state authority, violence is the only way. Every institutional form is born from a pure expression of power; otherwise, every man would be a state unto himself.

The film tackles a whole series of interesting topics without becoming heavy, verbose, or cold. The action is always vivid; the drama would work well even without its broad philosophical undertone. Thanks also to splendid actors and a balanced construction of the events: Rosamund Pike's tormented character is pure poetry and traces almost a parallel - and complementary - story to that of the captain. A woman of frightening dignity, prostrated, annihilated, transformed almost into an animal, with wide eyes and rage pulsing in her veins. Her evolution is too beautiful to be true, hyperbolic, but the same happens to the captain. Because the intention is to represent with emblematic figures the process of affirming the principles of civilization in America, civilization blossomed from clots of blood. A bit like There Will Be Blood, but without god.

7.5/10