Slow West from Beta Band’s Maclean an exceptional film debut

Slow West was filmed in New Zealand but is pretty much half Australian in terms of cast and crew.

Michael Fassbender and Kodi Smit-McPhee in John Maclean’s debut feature Slow West.

Here’s a tip. If you were a member of a 1990s indie band who has turned to film directing, DVD Letterbox will guarantee you review space in this newspaper. Let’s just say it’s my weak spot.

Or maybe it’s just a Scottish thing after Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch released his sweet musical God Help the Girl last year.

The Beta Band’s John Maclean is the lucky one this week with his exceptional debut feature, Slow West. It’s a more accomplished film than Murdoch’s although Maclean has a bit more oomph behind him, winning a BAFTA Award for his short film Pitch Black Heist, starring Michael Fassbender, in 2012.

Indeed, Slow West (M, Transmission, 84min, $29.99) has all kinds of attributes that whet DVD Letterbox’s appetite.

This sardonic western was filmed in New Zealand but it’s pretty much half Australian, with lead performers Kodi Smit-McPhee, Caren Pistorious and Ben Mendelsohn joining Fassbender. Emile Sherman’s See Saw Films co-produced it, Nikki Barrett cast the film and Snowtown’s Jed Kurzel does a beautiful score.

The tale is set in 1870 Colorado and introduces a disparate duo, Fassbender’s relaxed narrator and cold bounty hunter Silas who chaperones the naive teen Jay (Smit-McPhee) after a chance encounter and killing that establishes the dry wit of Maclean’s screenplay.

Jay has improbably travelled to America from Scotland in pursuit of a sweetheart who, it becomes clear, may be above his station, Rose (Offspring’s Pistorius). Jay doesn’t know there is a bounty on Rose and her father, and Silas anticipates the lovelorn teen will lead him to it.

As with many westerns, Slow West is a journey stumbling across eccentric characters, life-threatening scenarios and poetic allusions. Characters flit in and out of the journey and barely explain themselves, other than Mendelsohn’s outlaw Payne, looking like a frontier Huggy Bear in his fur jacket.

And it obviously ends in a shootout, albeit a gorgeous one framed by corn fields, snow-capped mountains and a fresh homestead representing the pioneering nature of those moving across the Wild West.

The wonderful denouement does not feature heroes; just simple folk dealing with immediacy of life or death.

Motivations are not strong in a world where survival is a means and an end, and Smit-McPhee’s Jay is the main offender with his blank performance. But the film’s components, and Maclean’s nerve holding his offbeat vision of a western, keep you engaged.

It is worth it to see a relaxed Fassbender, plus something we’re getting used to: Mendelsohn almost stealing another movie. When the film’s bodies are stacked up on screen, we’re reminded life was cheap in a place where the vistas were big. And then, as Payne says, “It’s over. It doesn’t hurt.”

THIS WEEK

Top Five (MA15+)

Paramount (102min, $29.95)

Run All Night (MA15+)

Warner (115min, $39.95)

A Little Chaos (M)

Transmission (117min, $29.99)

Get Hard (MA15+)

Roadshow (100min, $39.95)