A strange obsessive film

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2009)

I watched this film on DVD while lying in bed late at night - I mention this as it might have influenced how I feel about it. I found the film to have an obsessive, haunting, but authentic quality about it.
Regardless of personal performances I felt that overall the film gave a very good look at a certain period in American history. Unlike films like "Young Guns" very little is glamorized here. People are not thrown back by gunfire - they drop from the trauma - and gunfights are a haphazard affair. All that was much like what "The West" was like, rather than how it was portrayed in novels and films. The length of the film, with its long conversation driven sequences with little background music also emphasize the period nature of the topic. Before radio, records and TV, folk found slower ways to pass the time.
The "facts" of the story are revealed in the title and "known" to many. But this film deals with the interior emotional landscape of the main characters rather than a straight forward plot driven set of scenes that we might expect. For some that will made it tedious to watch, but I found that I couldn't tear myself away from watching it - perhaps a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion - you know what's coming but have to watch anyway.
I also found the narration to be a peculiar, but effective addition. The narrator has to represent the author of the original book that the film's based on, because more than once he describes things that no character in the film would know. And yet this too helps set the scene in a manner counter to the usual, and I like that.
An enjoyable watch.