Director: David Von Ancken
Producers: Bruce Davey et al.
Screenplay: David Von Ancken & Abby Everett Jaques
Cinematography: John Toll
Music: Harry Gregson-Williams
Editor: Conrad Buff IV
Running Time: 115 minutes
Cast: Liam Neeson (Carver), Pierce Brosnan
(Gideon), Michael Wincott (Hayes), Xander Berkeley (Railroad Foreman), Ed
Lauter (Parsons), Tom Noonan (Minister Abraham), Kevin J. O'Connor (Henry),
John Robinson (Kid), Anjelica Huston (Madame Louise), Angie Harmon (Rose), Robert
Baker (Pope), Wes Studi (Charon), Jimmi Simpson (Big Brother), James Jordan
(Little Brother), Nate Mooney (Cousin Bill)
Deep in the Ruby Mountains in the winter of 1868, a lone fugitive named Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) shivers by a fire. Suddenly, two shots ring out, a second bullet wounding his left arm. Leaving his horse and most of his supplies, the terrified Gideon tumbles down the mountain as a deadly posse, led by the methodical Carver (Liam Neeson), stalks his every move.
So begins Seraphim Falls, a semi-revisionist Western once established as an extended chase that evolves into what could possibly be a Christian allegory by the final frame. With a tip of the hat to classic titles such as The Outlaw Josey Wales and Naked Prey, Seraphim Falls plays out like a tale of spiritual redemption disguised as a cinematic throwback to the Old West. What frustrates me is that I didn't catch on sooner; seraphim, after all, are the six-winged celestial beings (angels) attending on God, so the title could literally be interpreted as "the fall of angels."
If you think I'm reading too much into this film, see it for yourself; any early symbolism open to interpretation is pretty heavy-handed by the end. Granted, at the film's outset, the question of allegory is ambiguous. The first half-hour of Seraphim Falls play out like any of a number great Westerns. After inadvertently eluding Carver and his men by falling into a freezing river, Gideon's fight for survival in the freezing snow is so skillfully executed that one can almost feel the chill of his bones, the excruciating pain of his gunshot wound, and the tortuous process he undergoes to cope with it. Once the posse catches up, the movie kicks into gear, with an exhausted and weakened Gideon picking the men off one by one using his wits and the resources that nature provides him.
Only in the final half-hour does the film take its mystical turn. At first, I was a bit put off by this, and my wife even admitted that she found Seraphim Falls a "great film" up until that point. But the more I reflected on the film's conclusion, the more I appreciated its almost Felliniesque shift. The final moments of Seraphim Falls cannot be read literally, nor can the rest of the film in hindsight.
Some suggestion has been made that Seraphim Falls is a reverse narrative of Dante's Inferno, with Gideon and Carver beginning in the Ninth Circle (depicted as frozen lake in Dante's work) and slowly clawing their way out. For this to work, each of their episodic adventures, from bank robbers on the run to a railroad camp, would have to parallel, in some way, the higher circles of Hell. But in some ambiguous way, the film actually works better if taken this way. How else to explain the sudden appearance of Wes Studi as a Native American named Charon (the Ferryman of Hades) or Angelica Huston as a medicine woman named Louise Good in the third act?
Ultimately, the surreal, dreamlike conclusion may bother some. It bothered me when I saw it, and only later did I come to appreciate what the cowriter/director David Von Ancken was trying to do, even if he didn't quite hit the mark. As pure Western, Seraphim Falls feels incomplete; as religious allegory, it borders on pretentious. But taken on its own terms, this is an ambitious piece of filmmaking that gets enough things right to warrant my recommendation.
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