THE PREMISE:

"Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

The Western movie genre has largely fallen out of favour with Hollywood. In our postmodern era of streaming services and superheroes, the untamed frontier doesn’t attract the same attention it once did. Enter Horizon, a 4-part saga self-funded by Kevin Costner, to return audiences to the wild west of America. Its story is ginormous and sprawling, made with a critical eye towards the tropes of the genre, and is passionately human. 

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is around 3 hours long - but it never feels like a three hour movie. Every sequence is gripping, whether through the deliberate blocking which slowly introduces the audience to a location/scene, the rising tensions of powder keg characters, or the explosive violence that rips through the frontier. The pacing and editing of Horizon is top notch - editor Miklos Wright stretches and constricts time to allow the audience the maximum amount of empathy for these characters. Whether it’s a town dance or a shootout on a hill, there is never a dull moment in Horizon. 

This is aided by the cinematography - director of photography J. Michael Muro expertly makes the west feel big again. There is something deeply filmic about watching horse-drawn carriages stir up dust in the deserts of Utah. Those big moments are contrasted with the tiny moments that feel even bigger. A shot of Costner's reflection in water as a shootout comes to an end. The faces of two upper class Britons experiencing their first thunderstorm in the frontier. It’s massive filmmaking, and it’s advanced by Derek R. Hill’s production design. Horizon manages to take the terrain of Utah and transform it into any part of the frontier, and it’s wonderful. In short, Horizon is a technical marvel that proves Western movies still have longevity in a modern era. 

As it pertains to the story, this review is only capable of discussing what has happened so far. Horizon is a multi-part series, and part one is merely a collection of inciting incidents. But as a collection of isolated events, Horizon manages to feel spiritually united - its subject isn’t the characters, but the land, and how it changes. The most compelling part about Horizon is how ‘procedural’ the film is. Dialogues are focused on what a character needs to do, why they need to do it, and how the other person can get in line or stay out of their way. These exchanges are laser focused - often one-on-one - and because of that, as an audience member, it's possible to forget the names of the characters. But it’s impossible to forget these characters, because their actions and wardrobe are completely in sync with each other. 

There are two brothers in the film who hunt Hayes (Costner), and I never truly caught their names in the film. But their greasy hair and fur-adorned shirts elevate them to important people. Add to it the anger/ego that Jamie Campbell Bower infuses in his performance of Caleb Sykes, and the calmer, authoritative performance given by Jon Beavers, and the Sykes brothers no longer need names to be important to our story. They are a presence hunting down Costner. In another storyline, we are introduced to two, upper class individuals making the pilgrimage to Horizon. We know they are upper class by the way they dress, with layers and a proper dress for the wife. And we know it by their actions - asking other members of the group to fetch them water. Ella Hunt and Tom Payne capture these characters through their accents and aversion to conflict and through their youthful wonder when presented with the frontier. It’s deeply fascinating to witness, despite never remembering that their characters are named Julliette and Hugh. 

Every cast member manages to tap into what makes their character unique - it’s what makes Horizon feel more like a prestige television show than an epic film. The characters are all written with a care for them, with costumes that tap into who they are, and with phenomenal actors and actresses bringing them to life.

As we jump around the various storylines, it becomes clear that Horizon is only the beginning of an epic saga. Each scene often takes its time to create an emotional connection to the audience through action, which takes time. The opening sequence introduces the audience to two indigenous boys as they watch a settler family begin to build Horizon. These boys debate what the settlers are doing - before a raiding party of grown indigenous men approach the settlement. It’s an introduction to the conflict at the core of Horizon - the attempts to settle in Apache territory unable to be defended by the mounted forces. And it highlights the symbolic conflict at the core of the film: young hope versus the jagged nihilism of the old. 

It’s impossible for me to cover this film without discussing its portrayal of the indigenous peoples of America. As a Canadian educator who is learning more and more about the heinous acts my government has done to an entire peoples who have called Canada home for time immemorial, it’s important to critically examine the messages within our media about indigenous people. The western, as a genre, has been about subjugating the land, and with it, it’s previous inhabitants. It’s a genre with tropes that paint indigenous people to be savage, brutish, and unworthy of respect. These ideas are hurtful to people, and in an era of reconciliation, I was curious how Horizon would grapple with these ideas. 

Fundamentally, Horizon fascinates me because of its ability to disguise progressive ideas through these tropes. The film starts with Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe) leading a violent attack on the small settlement of Horizon - very much in line with the tropes of the genre - but in the aftermath, as Pionsenay returns home to the Apache band, the focus of the scene changes. The women, children, and chief of the band are discomforted by Pionsenay’s exploits, and for his actions, he is exiled - as is anyone who may choose to join him. It’s a powerful sequence depicting indigenous peoples as rationale and peace-making, flipping the trope on its head. A late scene depicts the killing of indigenous people by colonizers through the eyes of a young boy - clearly uncomfortable with the events unfolding around him. 

These are small moments in a three hour film, but they may be the most important moments of this movie. Horizon is a western seeking redemption for the genre's past, and if the next chapter is as insightful and nuanced as chapter one, it may just achieve it.