Horizon an American Saga Chapter movie review

Horizon an American Saga Chapter is a classic Western movie. A film directed by Kevin Costner, which pays homage to the cinema of John Ford and his traditional westerns in terms of narrative.

In the western world, Kevin Costner's name is as important as John Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone, etc. Kestner's westerns belong to a time when the genre had moved past the traditional era and the early anti-westerns. Kestner in the year 1990 by making the film Dances with Wolves (Dances with Wolves) was able to give new life to this dying genre and open a new path for making future anti-westerns. Dancers with Wolves was an avant-garde work that made Western cinema stay on the stage and not disappear. This movie messed up the equations of classical and spaghetti westerns and added new elements.

The Western world is a vast world full of cinematic archetypes. This genre contains certain patterns both structurally and narratively that have made the western genre known by them. Indians and natives, the Northern Army, the American Civil War, good and evil, six-barrels, lonely women, innocent heroes, pubs, bad women, newly founded cities with wooden buildings, etc. are elements that will be repeated in the Western genre film after film. . The western has come a long but fascinating journey over the course of more than a century, which is why it might not be wise to make a western in this day and age of cinema without mixing it with other genres. Because the audience will want to know what the western has added to this old genre.

The story of the film will be revealed later

Kevin Costner chose not to direct a film for a long time after he made the Western Open Range in 2003. Now he seems to miss the western genre and is going to make three more sequels for this movie. The movie Horizon an American Saga Chapter is the first part of a movie series that tells stories from the western world. This film, which was shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, attracted the attention of critics at this event. However, Horizon has not been able to satisfy all critics so far. In fact, we have to wait and see if Kestner will present a consistent narrative in the next episodes or not?

Horizon tells several different stories with different characters that are told in parallel with each other. The stories of these characters, which run parallel to each other, have not been connected to each other at any point so far. It is better to look at this movie as a prelude to the other three parts, otherwise, if we try to look at Horizon with a different perspective, we will be disappointed. In this film, Costner seems to be setting the stage for a larger narrative. In this work, he introduces his characters to us one by one so that he can get a better understanding of them in other parts. Of course, these are just our guesses and if such an event does not happen, this multiplex will definitely be a worthless work in the western genre.

Horizon an American Saga Chapter is not a strong and respectable work in Kevin Costner's career. The relationship between the western genre and Kastner is a two-way relationship, as much as the western made this director famous, he also had many influences on the western genre. Now the movie Horizon is nowhere in this relationship. Neither has added anything to the Western genre, nor can it be a defensible work in Costner's career like Dances with Wolves. Horizon is a traditional and classic western. In this film, Costner prefers to pay homage to the early years of Westerns and not talk much about anti-Westerns.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the movie Horizon consists of several stories with different characters. Characters who fight for survival in the wild west and inevitably have to defend themselves no matter what. Trying to live and survive is a common element among the parallel stories of this film. At the beginning of the film, when the settlers camp by the Apache river and are attacked at night, both groups fight and die to protect what they think is theirs. The only thing in between is savagery in the way of something that lives in human instinct.

This theme is repeated in the following stories and the characters go to battle and fight with each other and nature for the ownership of the land, the mine and a new place to live. The group of immigrants are cautious due to the fear of Indian attack and lack of water, and the Indians also watch the movement of the newcomers in their lands from afar. In addition to all this, Kestner is showing how the new civilization was formed in America. All these stories seem to end up in Horizon, the region that is the final destination of all immigrants. In the style of John Ford, Kestner sees Indians as a dangerous factor against civilization, and like him in the opening story, he seeks to show the danger of primitiveness.

As mentioned, Costner adheres to the elements of a traditional western in this film. Indians depicted in John Ford's style, destroying white people. Or a hero with an archetype of good who reaches a city and is supposed to cleanse it of evil and impurity. Costner himself has appeared in this film in the role of the same pure hero, a character who, according to another element of the traditional western film, becomes the saving angel of a bad woman. Continuing to use the characteristics of an authentic Western, Kestner uses the plot of betrayal and revenge. Revenge, like the archetype of good and evil, is an inseparable part of such westerns. Kestner sets his narrative in motion on a bed of revenge. A boy runs miles to avenge the death of his parents and buys a gun, the sons of a bad man go everywhere to take revenge on a bad woman, and Indians start killing because of taking their land.

The movie Horizon an American Saga Chapter is a narrative with different stories. Stories that each in turn should contain an attractive and captivating story. However, Kastner is unable to tell deep stories in a long period of several hours. There is a structural confusion among these narratives that confuses the audience to understand what is happening in the picture. At first glance, the viewer feels that Horizon is a film whose stories are fragments of several separate films. Narratives that are inefficiently placed next to each other and it is not clear where they are going to end.

Horizon is also unable to present and pay its characters and cannot tell a suitable story for them. A large part of the life of the characters in this story remains hidden from the audience. Except for Kestner, who carries with him the essence of western heroes, the rest of them are engaged in presenting superficial actions without any effective background in the heart of the story.

For example, the story of a woman who escaped from that brutal family and took refuge with a kind man is not very obvious to the audience and cannot be viewed as a logical puzzle. Apart from the weak characters of this movie, the stories also lack suspense and excitement. Narratives fail to present a series of gripping conflicts to the audience and stop at the very beginning. The film Horizon is the first part of a series that may disappoint the audience of the western genre from the very beginning. In this episode, Kastner did not provide any information about Bukhari, and the audience has to wait for the next episodes.