Despite its open-armed conviviality and much heralded listless lifestyle, there has always been a dark and forbidding air of dread to the South. My my, I do declare...the south. That great penned in farrago of endless forests, dilapidated infrastructures, drawling speech patterns and smudged overalls.
Perhaps we can blame television programs like True Detective for these notions. Television series that depict the south as a wilderness peopled entirely by glistening and groaning hard-living men, stubborn in their worldview, impervious to change and thoroughly bathed in the language and mannerisms of old Dixie, gruffly yet politely telling you to fukk off. With all due respect m’am. Along with this, there is, of course, the smog of violence that permeates most southern set dramatizations, usually capturing the charm of the south along with the ubiquity and love of guns. And, even beyond the silver screen, there are the real life feuds. Take for one the Hatfield-McCoy feud, (perhaps inspiration for this film) essentially based upon on a complex and sprawling backwoods code of honor and chivalry, but to outsiders resembling a soupy and vague hillbilly dramedy, invariably with tense showdowns taking place near a river or a funnily named county. And indeed, perhaps the South is not all violent, but you can justifiably raise concerns and questions. But of course, feelings on violence are the indelible thoughts for most of the United States as this current juncture. A nationwide preoccupation with blood spattering antics, skull splitting scenarios and a general bloodlust that seemingly will never reach a head or a mutual impasse between everyone involved. A wretched and intractable sentiment that will long continue.
Movies rarely ever depict the escalation and mediation of violence as viscerally as Blue Ruin. Macon Blair plays Dwight, a paunchy and hirsute wanderer living out of a rusted and beat up car in Delaware. We know very little of his story except for one morning when a police officer takes him into the station and informs him that the murderer of his parents is being released from jail imminently. From that point, Dwight turns into an astonishingly relentless presence on the screen. In lieu of the hulked up testosterone pumps that we routinely associate with revenge stories like this, we are instead met with the supremely average American male exacting revenge yet who still cuts a vivid presence that the former generally commands.
This is in part what makes Dwight a compelling character and as such is a brilliant acting turn by Macon Blair. He’s as hapless as he is dangerous. One who isn’t truly versed in killing yet is competent, but also an individual you could perhaps envision ranking Wes Anderson films from best to worst on an internet forum, or discussing the finer points of Iron & Wine’s discography. And as goofy as he may come across at some points in the film, the script and acting never descends into farce and instead provides some truly dark humor to accentuate his character and the mission he is on.
The film is well shot. The scenes of Dwight driving on winding roads into an ominous fog and the first murder sequence are a few examples out of many excellent scenes. Many of the scenes are exercises in tension and anxiety shown through the eyes of Dwight and was one of the most tense and tightly wound films I've seen in some time.
It's good. Go see it (It's on Itunes right now. Will probably be on netflix at some point or another). The end.
