“First Cow” at Mubi: the Wild West with a difference. – Culture

Cookie (John Magaro) is arguably the gentlest person who has ever trudged through a western. When he discovers a salamander on his back while collecting mushrooms, he carefully turns it over. And he also helps the naked Chinese who appears in the bush in front of him at night. Cookie works as a cook for a troop of fur hunters in wild Oregon in the early 19th century. It’s not quite his world. He prefers to decorate a friend’s hut with flowers he has picked himself. Cookie does not distribute punches.

Since many companies want to be more diverse, people have been counting more or less worried: Are there enough women on board? People of Color? The film “First Cow” (from July 9 on the streaming service Mubi) is a “diverse” feminist western in many respects, in which almost no women and only a few PoCs appear. Kelly Reichardt, director of “Wendy and Lucy” (2008) and “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010), among others, is one step ahead of purely mathematical equality.

“First Cow” is her second western, and it is significant which standard situations and motifs of this “male” genre are of no interest to the director. In one scene, Cookie is having a drink in the saloon where two men are arguing. One of them is hugging a baby to Cookie to take care of it while the guys are fighting outside. The camera usually follows the action, but Reichardt stays with Cookie, who tries to calm the baby while the men beating each other can be seen out of focus in front of the window. What a superfluous ritual, the camera and editing seem to be commenting on.

The pioneers are pathetic figures in primeval forest-like landscapes

In addition to Cookie, another man stayed in the saloon: King-Lu (Orion Lee), the young Chinese whom Cookie saved. The two only exchange a few words, then Cookie moves naturally to him in his modest hut. The roles are clearly assigned: while King-Lu is chopping firewood, Cookie picks up his broom, then just as wordlessly he picks flowers and decorates the common home.

In contrast to “Brokeback Mountain”, for example, there is no sex scene, not even a physical approach. And yet love resonates with this male friendship. A selfless bondage.

Against the backdrop of the uncivilized country with its often brutal settlers who are only concerned with their own benefit, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu seems as inappropriately as the cow that comes – as the first ever – to the area. “Cows don’t belong here,” thinks one. “Neither do white men,” countered another.

In the Western, this original American genre, the process of civilization is negotiated again and again, which myths and values ​​the pioneers establish while they are the frontier Move west. In “Meek’s Cutoff” Reichardt described this process as a tormenting odyssey, but also as a journey into the open. “First Cow” is similarly devoid of illusions: the pioneers are poor figures in landscapes similar to jungle; their settlement is a collection of wooden shacks. The equipment and costumes of “First Cow” look authentic, they are remarkable, a statement in themselves. “The story hasn’t even got here yet,” says King-Lu once. “But this time we are there early. We can design it as we want.”

He is the apparently smarter of the friends, eloquent and full of ideas, while Cookie is melancholy and crazy. An artist type: Because he is tired of the usual bread made from flour and water, Cookie bakes cakes deep-fried in oil for himself and his friend. King-Lu turns it into a business idea. And the fine donuts that remind the pioneers of their homeland are literally ripped out of their hands. It is the American Dream that King-Lu dreams. The only problem is that there should be milk in the dough for their pastries – which the friends have to steal from the only cow far and wide.

“First Cow” is also a statement about how the West could have been colonized differently

In addition to the friendship story, “First Cow” tells of early capitalism, the laws of the market, supply and demand, how to achieve added value – all of this is easy to understand when selling donuts. Reichardt had already characterized the settlement as a trading center: there is constant haggling, buying and selling. And it is also a civilizational progress that no one is slain anymore because they are wearing good boots or carrying wonderful-tasting cakes with them.

The world is still young – but King-Lu is wrong in believing that anything is still possible. Chief Factor (Toby Jones), who owns the cow and probably much of the land around the settlement, is the most cultured and barbaric character in the film at the same time. He lets his little cookies melt on his tongue and babbles about Parisian fashion. The cruelty is all the more frightening when he makes considerations about the severity of corporal punishment as an arithmetic problem: In the case of an older worker, the punishment can be so high that it cripples the man because the deterrent is worth more than the man’s worth than Worker. While he is presenting this callous calculation, the camera circles around him, showing his elegantly furnished home until the viewer becomes dizzy. It is the logic of capitalism that Reichardt formulates.

The rules and power relations in this still young world have remained the same. “First Cow” is also a statement of how it could have been done differently. It’s not just his friends who set an example, but also Cookie in dealing with the cow when he secretly milks her at night. There are almost lyrical moments when he speaks to her very gently and with respect and the equally gentle-eyed cow, it seems, gives him milk – the alternative of stealing and swapping.

First cow, USA 2019 – Director: Kelly Reichardt. Book: Jon Raymond, K. Kelly Reichardt. Camera: Christopher Blauvelt. Editor: Kelly Reichardt. With: John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewen Bremner, Scott Shepherd. From July 9th at Mubi, 122 minutes.