Kevin Coster has delusions of grandeur. The actor and director is back in the spotlight - after an out-of-competition appearance at last year's Cannes Film Festival - with a pharaonic and ambitious project, an epic saga about the conquest of the American West in 3 films, each lasting 3 hours (!).
The first installment of Horizon, an American saga is due to hit French cinemas on July 3, 2024, the eve of the American national holiday. Kevin Coster had already demonstrated his interest in the great American story as seen through the prism of men in Danse avec les Loups, released in 1990, which looked at the history of the American Indians.
This time, the American director signs a true western with all the genre's good points... and not-so-good ones. The pleasure of rediscovering the great outdoors, the markers of Americana and the scope format is real, both for the audience and for Costner, who undeniably seems to enjoy filming the first steps of the United States, like a father filming his child's. But the downside is that the film suffers from a (too) great classicism. But the downside is that the film suffers from (too) much classicism in both form and content.
Boasting a 3-star sheriff's cast(Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Luke Wilson and Kevin Costner himself, who doesn't take the lead role), the film follows the destiny of the settlers (the 'White Eyes of the Plain') in the mid-19th century, convinced that the promised land is within their grasp, and the Apaches, whose fate we know in advance.
From the San Pedro Valley to the snow-capped mountains of Montana, from the Indian reservations of Wyoming to the Santa Fe Trail inWest Texas, the film maps the United States and the not-so-fantastic epic in this lawless country where massacres and violence, on both sides, are legion. The result is a series of highly entertaining gunfights. It's a great show for the less young, who are well-versed in the art of the Western, but also for the more novice, who will delight in the Red Dead Redemption atmosphere.
The film succeeds in capturing the frenzy of this seminal chapter in American history, while questioning the values that shaped the nation. But in showing so many parallel temporalities, Horizon (named after the land the settlers could buy on the Indian hunting reservation) also loses itself in conjecture, offering an overflow of detail.
Was there really any need for such a vast fresco? It remains to be seen whether the various stories will come together in subsequent installments. The film can be (re)discovered on VOD for purchase and rental on October 31, 2024.
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