Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 4K 2024 2160p WEB-DL

An epic western whose action will take place after the end of the American Civil War over a period of 15 years.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 4K Review
There is perhaps no genre more American than the Western. Stories about brave cowboys and the Wild West have captured wide screens since the heyday of cinema. For more than a century, the Western has been buried dozens of times, but each time it climbed out of the quicksand of oblivion, desperately refusing to die. At the end of the last century almost fixed the final time of death of the genre, but first “Dances with Wolves” by Kevin Costner, and then “Unforgiven” by Clint Eastwood reanimated the saga of the frontier not only for the audience, but also for the film academy (“Dances with Wolves” won seven Oscars, “Unforgiven” - four). Both Costner and Eastwood - the “main cowboys” of American cinema - are still in business. And while the latter is working hard on his latest movie, the former has shot a dream project, which premiered at the last Cannes Film Festival.

With “Dances with Wolves” Kevin Costner influenced not only the development of the western, but also the entire modern American cinema. If we transfer “Dances with Wolves” and “Avatar” on paper, it turns out that at the level of the plot they are almost identical films, where the second only added some blue colors. What fate is destined for the new picture of the director?

“Horizon: An American Saga Part 1” - the first film of a potential tetralogy Costner (the second chapter will be released in August, and the fate of the third and fourth film directly depends on the box office success of the first two). The director's vision is as ambitious as it is insane. The ambition manifests itself not only in the monstrous three-hour running time and gigantic budget of the picture, but also in the bet on a conventional plot in an era of genre redefinition. The first “Horizons” is a classic, even old-fashioned western, shot as if from a textbook from the last century. The brutal indigenous population, no less brutal settlers, killing indiscriminately all the natives, not just those guilty of atrocities. Silent, tired of former battles protagonist, dreaming of leading a quiet life, but unwittingly caught in the center of strife. Hayes Ellison (Kevin Costner) is a pastiche on Eastwood's nameless cowboy. A character left long in the past. Today, the protagonists of Westerns are no longer just surly gunslingers, and it's common to talk openly about more important topics in the Wild West: the repression or acceptance of one's sexuality (“Dog Power,” “Strange Living”) and white colonial politics. Costner's picture has nothing new to offer the genre, just long-earned, almost textbook plot arcs.

Here's a bloody Indian raid on settlers stranded on Apache land. Here is a blonde in distress, who is rescued by a noble gentleman. And here are indiscriminate revengeful “pale-face”, killing the innocent and reveling in their own cruelty. The familiar tropes are stretched over one hundred and eighty minutes and broken into four separate stories. The polyptych desperately refuses to add up to a bigger picture. Instead, one is forced to watch the rapidly shifting storylines. The misadventures of Hayes Ellison and the courtesan Marigold (Abby Lee), who has joined him with an infant in her arms. To the budding romance between widowed Frances (Sienna Miller) and Lt. Trent (Sam Worthington). Behind the Sakes family's retribution against the girl Lucy (Jena Malone) who killed their daddy - her former lover and the father of her child. Behind an orphaned teenager who joins a vigilante squad selling Aboriginal scalps for a hundred apiece.

The fragmented plot resembles a TV series, but not a full-length movie. Three hours of timing is perceived only as a large-scale trailer to the main story, and the final scene of rapidly changing frames in the spirit of “look in the next series” only confirms it.

“Horizons” will definitely be able to please fans of old-fashioned westerns, but it is unlikely that they can become an innovation of the genre. Now the parallels between Costner and Cameron will arise not only in the context of similarities between “Dancer” and “Avatar”. After all, not only Costner beautifully looped the roll call, calling for one of the main roles of Sam Waringtog, but now the fate of the multi-part opus magnum director directly depends on box office receipts. Just like Cameron did with Avatar. But will Costner be able to bring his idea to its logical conclusion? We'll find out a few months later.