*This is rated R. It shows some graphic stuff having to do with sexual assault and gun violence.
Wind River is a mystery/crime thriller about the death of an 18 year old Native American woman named Natalie, who died in the middle of the snowy woods in the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The movie opens up with this really chilling scene of the young woman running through the snow barefoot in the middle of the night, while an eerie poem is being recited as the scene plays out. You automatically know that she is running from something and that she is in some kind of danger. After the opening scene, I immediately got the creeps. The film's protagonist is a man named Cory Lambert, a hunter in the area who knows the area in Wyoming like the back of his hand. He teams up with an FBI agent named Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to solve the mystery. It might seem weird that a man who hunts animals for a living would be working to crack a homicide with an FBI agent, but the viewers soon learn that Lambert lost his daughter Emily three years ago, very similarly to how Natalie died in the snow. Lambert and Banner are automatically confronted with conflict when the doctor who performs the autopsy on Natalie's body declared she died of the effects of the cold on her lungs and her body. With this being said, the death can't be ruled as a homicide, so Banner and Lamber are on their own to crack the case. With more inspection on the crime scene, Natalie had ran for 6 miles straight in the freezing cold with no shoes. She was obviously running for her life. This movie keeps you on your toes the whole time. It is terrifying, eerie and poignant all at once. What I liked about this movie was that the setting was one of the biggest antagonists in the film. In the middle of an Indian reservation in Wyoming, there is nothing but the freezing cold, snow, and silence. There are miles and miles between any residence or shelter. It becomes extremely evident how dangerous this land truly is when you see how Natalie died. The man vs. nature theme is very prominent. There are no real police out there, either. The Indian reservation is an outcasted land where people are truly on their own. Since the population is so small on the reservation, Banner and Lambert have a pretty small pool of suspects to investigate. That doesn't mean that they aren't in incredible danger while doing so. It is every man for himself there, and Banner and Lambert get into life or death situations more than once. This movie is dark. If you like dark, unhappy and at times creepy movies, then you'll love this one. You'll feel pretty heavy after watching it, though. When Lambert and Banner finally discover the man who sexually assaulted Natalie, causing her to run away, the ending is not pretty. This movie was still really enjoyable, mainly because it is dark yet carries an important message. It also kind of reminded me of a modern-day western movie, which I really liked, because those aren't usually the types of movies that I tend to watch. At the end of the film, it leaves you with a chilling fact: there are no official records in America of missing/murdered Native American women. It is really sad to see that a population is still so outcasted and marginalized in the country. Overall, this was a very smart and intense movie. I would recommend.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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