First Cow

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🎙️ EPISODE 303: 02.05.2021 There is a moment early on in First Cow, when our surrogate Cookie is convinced to leave a baby at a bar by his fast friend King-Lu. Now, this baby is not his baby–it is the baby of a brutish fool who has tumbled outside for a fight–but the significance of this choice can't be understated: we see in this decision the folly of all decision-making, whether they're good or bad, their consequences ring true, and we're powerless in their wake. Set due east and two decades earlier then Kelly Reichardt's period masterpiece Meek's Cutoff, this film continues in stride one of the most remarkable careers in filmmaking I've had the pleasure to explore. Similar themes arise: friendship, the plight of the outsider, and, centrally, the concept of choice, of freewill, of fate. Leave the baby, steal the milk, buy the ticket, take the ride. There is a Robin Hood or [insert morality play of Fable X,Y,Z here] esque quality to First Cow which makes it unique among the Reichardt catalog. Teaming once again with screenwriter Jonathan Raymond after a one-

movie break (Certain Women), this is based upon his novel The Half-Life. I haven't read it, but one can glean a lot from that title, a double meaning for sure.

It's 2020: A new decade begins and we're still in the Pacific Northwest, albeit a scant two-hundred years in the past, and no one saw this in a movie theater. But the parallel lines of time still connect, even if a single year looks about as different as two-hundred. We're still trying to take a little something from the Haves, and hoping they don't kill us for it. Is time even passing and how much time? This same dilemma continues, and like all (good) trouble, there's no beginning, no end: only the struggle, and at its heart it speaks of dreams.

This Oregon is a true true melting pot, more so than today. And violence exists. More so than today. It's The American Dream, always complicated, always complicit in its willingness to turn to violence at the drop of a hat or a little spilt milk. When Cookie and King-Lu escape into the forest, I see the same woods as Kurt and Mark's in Old Joy. In a panic, King-Lu, a Chinese Man, confronts a Native American man: their encounter again reminiscent of Meek's Indian, only this time it works. Buttons for a canoe.

They meet their demise at the hands of a wholly insignificant character, simply playing his part in the great game of life (aiming for significance, climbing that ladder). And before they go, Cookie, the chef from Maryland, tells a joke: "Why is a baker like a beggar?"

These movies are significant because they level the playing field. We're all the same in the end.

Part of the... Ranking Kelly Reichardt Series – #5

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 302B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 304 ⫸

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