a review of 关山飞渡

1ST ANNUAL CRITERION CHALLENGE WEEK 16: WESTERNS Classic Westerns can be kind of a touch-and-go experience for me, even ones from universally-esteemed filmmakers like John Ford. I was initially a bit reticent about this one because I really didn't like Ford's "The Searchers" due to A) the undeniably racist depiction of the Comanches and B) the ridiculous macho shittiness of John Wayne's character, and figured that maybe some of that was solidly on Ford as a filmmaker. So I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, and how much less reactionary it all felt in comparison, in spite of being made nearly 20 years earlier. The characters are introduced and sketched in a very accessible and breezy fashion in the first 15 minutes, and the movie does an excellent job of giving us all of their complexities over the remaining running time. All this while also giving us some pretty astounding action sequences that I didn't think were possible using 1930s film equipment. Even John Wayne comes across as sympathetic and likable here, in part because (unlike in "The Searchers", which wholeheartedly accepted his myth as the legendary Western hardass) his character has just as much to prove to the audience as he does to the other characters. I will say that the movie's depiction of the Apache as warlike savages is pretty regrettable, but thankfully they're mainly treated as a plot device, without any foregrounded villains like we saw in "The Searchers." The script does make an effort to show anti-Native racism as an unflattering crack in a would-be embezzler's polite veneer, but it's a very minor detail. As I continue to watch more classic Westerns, I feel like this is something that Hollywood just doesn't get right for a very long time, so I'm looking for pretty much any bright spots that I can see.