The Power of the Dog - Directed by Jane Campion
Westerns may be the only genre America can claim any true ownership of. Despite many of the heroic hallmarks that westerns carry for the casual American filmgoer it doesn’t take much digging to see that underneath the surface many westerns take on some pretty dark self-reflection. Specifically centered around the ideas of westward expansion and manifest destiny. It seems only fitting then that Jane Campion, a born and bred New Zealander would be attracted to the genre. Her own country has just as many scars from its colonialist history. She shot The Power Of The Dog in her homeland but it’s set in Montana. It isn’t just the similar geography but the genre and story themes that resonate back and forth through this film’s story and its real-life locations.
Another theme commonly examined in westerns is toxic masculinity. The Thomas Savage novel this film is based on was deconstructing the concept back in 1967. But Campion approaches the subject matter with a restrained sexuality rarely found in westerns. Restrained may not even be the right word since that same tension is also so overt. It threatens to burst the bubble of these characters’ lives at any moment and despite the heightened feelings on display, Power Of The Dog always feels like it has humanity’s number, fully aware of how close our best and worst impulses actually are.
Campion’s film often uses the family unit as a way of exploring the violence physical or otherwise that humans bring upon each other and Power Of The Dog is no exception. The film is about two brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons), ranchers in 1920s Montana whose wealthy east coast upbringing has affected each of them in different ways. George retains the stuffed shirt manners of their childhood, wearing expensive suits and owning the business side of the ranch. Phil on the other hand, denies his roots entirely, remaking himself in the image of his idol, Bronco Henry, the cowboy who taught him the ways of the open range.
Phil makes it evident quickly that his view of being a man includes a hatred of anything soft or weak including his brother who he bullies tirelessly. Into this volatile situation comes Rose (Kirsten Dunst) a widow who runs a restaurant on the frontier and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who accompanies Rose to the brother’s ranch after George takes her as his wife. The newlyweds are sweet to each other but that doesn’t last thanks to Phil quickly souring it with casual cruelty. Every relationship in the film quickly becomes a devious game between those involved.
The Power Of The Dog reveals its secrets in a measured fashion and the film grows richer with each new revelation. The script is sparse as are backstories and exposition. Campion uses visual cues to convey subtleties in the dynamics between characters. The significance of a moment may not be clear until much later on in the film.
The performances are as layered as the storytelling. Though everyone fears Phil, Cumberbatch plays him with rigidity rather than explosive fury. Dunst hides Rose’s despair until she can’t anymore. Plemons never breaks the way other characters do but Plemons makes it plain there is a great lake of emotion behind a dam built out of societal respectability. Smit-McPhee’s sensitive, scholarly Peter contains similar depths as we learn when a pet rabbit becomes a dissection model for an aspiring physician.
When we learn that Phil is gay it complicates everything we knew about him as what we believed was the film’s villain. Pile on the idea that Peter isn’t as helpless or harmless as we thought and we can see why Jane Campion was attracted to this story. The revelation about Phil comes in the form of a character voyeuristically witnessing him caress his shirtless torso with his former lover’s bandana. Campion makes a meal out of eroticizing cowboy iconography all the while continuing to display Phil in the same poses with the same framing we’ve seen John Wayne portrayed dozens of times. Campion’s decision to marry these two ideas together is where the genius of this film lies. In the same way our view of Phil is thrown for a loop when his sexuality is revealed so too do we start to think differently about these western heroes plastered all over American film legend. Perhaps Phil is a more truthful depiction of the more standard cowboy stars we all know so well. Underneath their exterior maybe they really are conflicted, tortured, secretive, and perhaps even a little cruel.
Late in the story, a quote from Psalm 22:20 explains the film’s title: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” That particular verse refers to ancient symbolism of dogs as scavengers who prey on the vulnerable. But the title could just as easily refer to a scene where Phil asks Peter what he sees when he looks at the shadows dotting the mountain that looms over the Burbank ranch. Peter says he sees the outline of a dog, its snout projected across the rock face. This power, the ability to look deeper and see beyond the obvious, will be essential to Peter’s survival. It’s essential to Campion’s film, too.
