The Dead Don't Hurt
In the 1860s, fiercely independent French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a journey with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, attempting to forge a life together in the dusty town of Elk Flats, Nevada. When Holger decides to go fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself, which isn't easy in a town controlled by a corrupt mayor.
- Released:
- Runtime: 130 minutes
- Genre: Drama, Western
- Stars: Garret Dillahunt, W. Earl Brown, Viggo Mortensen, Vicky Krieps, Danny Huston, Ray McKinnon, Solly McLeod, Alex Breaux, Michael Weaver, Nadia Litz, Colin Morgan, Luke Reilly, Atlas Green
- Director: Viggo Mortensen
Comments
- kaaber-2 - 1 July 2024
Better Looking Back - MAJOR SPOILERS!
At first, "The Dead Don't Hurt" struck me as morbidly slow-paced, and I actually thought "If this were any slower, it would go backwards." Then I realized that this is exactly what the film does. It jumps back and forth chronologically, but to be honest, I didn't catch that at first. It all hinges on recognizing that the wife Olsen loses in the beginning - she dies in bed, and their young son helps Olsen bury her - is the same woman he meets later on (which is earlier). At first, I just thought he met a woman of the same type as his deceased wife. This may be because I'm not very familiar with Vicky Krieps, having only seen her in "Phantom Thread." Anyway, in the scene where he meets his wife-to-be, Vivienne, I had time to wonder what he'd done with his young son. Left him on the farm in the middle of nowhere? Then there was a small scene in which Olsen tells Vivienne that he was married a long time ago, but his wife disappeared. Since Olsen didn't strike me as a guy who would lie, this gave me further cause to wonder (what about the wife who died in bed?) Then there's a massacre in town, with six people gunned down by a brute whom we only see in long shots - so when there is a subsequent trial, I only had reason to suspect that the man hanged for the shootings was not the real perpetrator (as indeed a woman states at the trial), but I couldn't be sure: didn't the shooter have a moustache? What happened with that?
Gradually, after about an hour into the film, I began to suspect that I had it all wrong. As indeed I did. And then everything made more sense, and I grew to be very fond of the film, in retrospect. If the idea was to confuse (or puzzle) the audience, it was a masterful maneuver.
And in retrospect, the characters grow on you. Vivienne, who started out as an annoying, entitled brat, turned to be very likeable and very pitiable. From being immature, especially in her dealings with the fiancée she ditched in favor of Olsen, and her expectations to Olsen's farm, she developed into a very mature and autonomous individual, developed through adversity. The dialogue in the scenes after Olsen returns from the war, and the scenes themselves, are worth the entire film.
I still have one thing to complain about. The part of the plot dealing with the cruel mayor and main heavy Jeffries with his maniac son seems out of place in the rest of the film, and the dialogue where the mayor is informing Jeffries about the take-over plan is terribly "telling the audience". Moreover, the whole take-over of the town goes fairly unaddressed by the hero and unpunished, too. That's okay, of course, but it takes up a lot of time considering that it's unresolved in the plot. - liverpool26 - 10 June 2024
Boring
Same story told a million times but in an incredibly boring way. No action at all, just two hours of back story.
Just watch emily blunt series the English instead. Basically the same story but told far better with actual action scenes.
I just waited for this movie to start for two hours then it ended.
Same story told a million times but in an incredibly boring way. No action at all, just two hours of back story.
Just watch emily blunt series the English instead. Basically the same story but told far better with actual action scenes.
I just waited for this movie to start for two hours then it ended.
