Wind River

Après une série relativement longue de films moyens et bof, je pensais qu'avec Wind River, le vent tournerait et que je retrouverais le goût du cinéma – mon entourage et mes utilisateurs préférés m’avaient rassuré sur ce point. Je ne savais pas à quoi m’attendre sur le plan du contenu, mais je comptais sur les critiques élogieuses. Eh bien, on dirait que je n’ai pas regardé la même chose que les autres ! L’histoire est ennuyeuse, il n’y a rien d’original, j’ai déjà tout vu ou lu quelque part, puis j’ai un a priori envers les drames/policiers qui se déroulent dans des terres désolées et reculées où il ne fait que neiger et où tous les personnages sont déprimés ou détraqués, d’autant que je n’ai jamais vu aucun film réussi qui se passait dans un tel décor. En outre, je ne qualifierais pas ce film de policier, vu que tout est résolu en deux temps, trois mouvements et que tout devient barbant par la suite. D'ailleurs, si à la place d’Olsen, c’était, disons, Jeff Bridges avec un chapeau et un dentier qui s’était montré au milieu de ce paysage enneigé, je ne sais pas si je serais resté dans la salle ! C’est probablement la déception de l’année. Une prochaine fois, je ne me laisserai plus avoir par les critiques élogieuses ! (12/10/2017)

Un thriller glacial parfaitement mis en scène et un drame infernalement triste sur les plus grandes pertes de vie emballés en un seul film. Une atmosphère dense et une mise en évidence intelligente de la position sociale des Amérindiens dans l'Amérique contemporaine. Un potentiel oscarisé très élevé. (08/07/2017)

Taylor Sheridan isn't as good a director as Denis Villeneuve, but he learned a lot from him, both good (his work with landscapes, drawing out the suspense to the limits of tolerability, shocking explosions of violence) and bad (“deliberateness” and unnecessary literalness). The investigation of the crime serves mainly as a means to create an atmosphere of ruination and total disillusion (as in film noir, in which the revealing of the perpetrator often occurs rather by chance than as the result of piecing together individual clues) and as an excuse to uncover something rotten in the midst of the community, similarly as in Top of the Lake and Wilderness, though on a much smaller area, which takes its toll in the form of overwrought scenes that try to say too much at once (a woman sits in her bedroom, crying and cutting her arm; another woman sees her, closes the door without a word and leaves). Furthermore, the realistic tone is disturbed by balladic dialogue about the frozen hellscape and undefeatable evil (which would have come across much better in the pages of a book) and the use of western archetypes, shifting the drama of people anchored in a particular social reality to a timeless parable about hunters and predators and the clash of two declining cultures. The combining of these two narrative levels could have been smoother and the treatment of the female protagonist lost among men who much better understand what’s happening around them didn’t have to be so reminiscent of Sicario, and sometimes it might have been enough for the characters to simply sit and be quiet, but the catharsis that Wind River delivers in the climax is so powerful that it absolutely outweighs the unconvincingness of the film’s individual parts. 75% (10/07/2017)

If you like movies and watch a large number of them every month, including the new ones, then you will appreciate a movie that is written so perfectly from start to finish that it's a pleasure to watch. That's probably why I would simply describe why I gave the film five stars. I had a feeling that from the beginning till the end I was watching a crime film with everything it entails. There were no complicated explanations, but an amazingly chilly atmosphere and wonderful locations. Everything fits together perfectly, and you enjoy not only the suffering of Elizabeth Olsen, but also Jeremy Renner, who became the lone fighter for justice the moment he put on the white overalls and ventured alone into the wild. I was excited. I didn’t miss a single minute of this movie. And the best part is that you can really feel that Taylor Sheridan is behind all of that. You can sense the chilling atmosphere of Sicario, but also the dangerous shoot offs of the film Hell or High Water. And yet you know that this film is in its way completely unique. Hopefully, Sheridan will maintain that diligence. When it comes to filmmaking craft, Wind River is one of the best films I saw in 2017. (12/10/2017)

An Indian girl was found murdered in the middle of Wyoming. An FBI agent arrives on the scene to find the killer with the help of a local tracker. Little does she know that this inhospitable land may be a bit too much for her to handle. Taylor Sheridan's directorial debut follows in the footsteps of his earlier films, and this time we get an atmospheric, gritty and manly piece where there's plenty of time for everything, but the slowly building atmosphere is ultimately so intense that you'll be biting your nails with suspense. And root for Jeremy Renner to win an Oscar. (16/08/2017)