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| FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINÉMA |
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| The Power Of The Dog |
You have never seen Benedict Cumberbatch like this.
Jane Campion, who won multiple awards in her career, was in Montreal for the first screening of her latest masterpiece The Power Of The Dog this past October 6th and won a lifetime achievement award from the festival. She wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Thomas Savage.
Her latest film is a powerful psychological drama that pits masculine stereotypes one against the other. Phil Burbank ( Benedict Cumberbatch ) and his brother George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) are wealthy ranchers in the 1920s that have slept in the same room all their lives. Their characters are drastically different. George enjoys taking baths and dressing to the hilts while Phil is an angry rebel who refuses to wash at all. Right from the beginning we see that George is moving past his relationship with his brother Phil whose multiple attempts to engage dialogue with his brother are met with silence.
A woman has won over George's heart, Rose Gordon, played with emotional depth and inner turmoil by Kristen Dunst. She operates an inn where the cowboys deliver their cattle. Her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is an artistically inclined intellectual teenager who is tall and slender and attracts the wrath of Phil who begins a campaign of bullying against the young man. The tension is intense between Rose and Phil because she sees how he treats her son and he sees the grip she has on her brother. The tension is relentless until the dramatic last act when secrets are revealed and the least suspected character is divulged to be a cunning killer.
The gorgeous cinematography also pits the vastness of the distant blue mountains over golden fields with the closed-in dark wood panelled home shared by the Burbank clan. The buzz is that this movie is a strong Oscar contender.
Have a Good Viewing!
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