Listed as a Special Presentation on the official NaFF (Nashville Film Festival) movie categorization, it was a treat to spend my first night of reviews in the packed attendance for upcoming Director, Jared Moshe’s, first anticipated Western. Released nationwide in select theaters on May 3rd, Dead Man’s Burden proved to be a solid first shot at making a movie.
With an impressive cast like Barlow Jacobs as Wade McCurry and Claire Bowen as Martha Kirkland, with a special guest appearance by veteran Richard Riehle, it is no wonder that this film was initially set up for success. However, as time has proved again and again, unoriginality and repetition as a creative force no longer has a place and I have certainly lost the patience. While there is brilliance to the few key moments of emotional hardship, there is too much lost in the replication of movie ghosts for there to be an overall redeemable quality.
Even at the end of the screening, the director himself admitted to having copied scene for scene with the olden Westerns of the silver vault. Much to his credit, there are a few aspects of Dead Man’s Burden that approved a head nod, such as using silent panorama as an active character within the movie itself. This allowed for easy fade outs between scenes and gave an obvious breath-taking view of the landscape of New Mexico (where the film was shot) but the lack of music and constant stain of yellow left an aesthetic blindness that should have been balanced by the power of the grain of a 35 mm film.
It is no lie that the story is paced well and that the ending is certainly unpredictable (or at least I am terrible at guessing surprises) but the frame ratio to the actors had me slightly squeamish for the majority of the movie. Director Moshe admitted that he realized how up close the actors would appear on the screen, making their heads enormously disproportionate. He also agreed that this was his intention. Once again, I disagreed because I felt it made things overcrowded and small which also caused multiple sound problems.
Ultimately, I gave the film three out of five stars. It was a solid first film indeed and I have no doubt that there will be more from him in the future. Since he clearly has no problem receiving backing and a budget, it will be nice to witness a more creative outlet for the next one.
