If your father is my father (and mine is) then you probably grew up watching a lot of westerns.
The Westerns that live rent free in my father’s mind are not always the most celebrated of cinematic achievements, which I think this is a terrible shame due to their incredible contribution to the art. But I suppose cowboys are just an acquired taste.
At their peak Westerns made up “A Quarter of All American Film Output” according to the British Film Institute. With such a large portion of the films monopolised by this genre, they were not all going to be ground breaking psychological analysis’. Especially at a time when the priority of studios was entertainment. Even now films that veer towards Artistic over Entertaining can polarize an audience.
Many westerns were intense character studies and dealt with a variety of real world issues that effect the audience (This is especially true of modern day westerns like Logan and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night). However, many were an onslaught of gunslinging and questionable portrayals of Native Americans, which have aged poorly over the years.
Something I found myself frequently questioning was the gun law universe in which a protagonist would kill tens of other human beings and be wholly unaffected by the event, where their biggest concern after racking up an enormous body count would be the availability of whiskey at the local saloon.
Now I understand that life on the frontier was different to my own and that most people probably wouldn’t cry for an hour after accidentally stepping on their cat’s tail. But I could never believe that heroes would come out of majorly traumatic events as their same old charming selves.
This all ties in to how much I loved The Sisters’ Brothers! Joaquin Phoenix who has built a career playing a variety of troubled characters gives a believable performance as a flawed protagonist (although John C Reilly is the actual protagonist of the film).
The Sisters’ Brothers is something of a psychological adventure for our protagonists. One is a disturbed man who not only makes his living as a criminal but revels in the violence, fear and bloodshed. And one is a seemingly genial and pleasant man; almost forced into the life of violent crime and while still doing his best to be a good man, is clearly effected by the psychological weight of his actions.
From the shootout that opens the film we see that Charlie (Phoenix) and Eli (Reilly) are not cuddly men, they are gunslingers by trade and don’t seem to have any qualms about killing. Although in private the two are very different men, Charlie a drunk who’s disintegrating and Eli deeply troubled by his continued involvement in such a line of work.
The film differs from many of its genre counterparts by giving us backstory, we learn that the brothers are victims of a violent and abusive father who Charlie ultimately killed in an incredibly unsettling flashback sequence. Eli reveals that “Charlie hasn’t been the same since” demonstrating a significant consequence to his actions that has festered over the years. The probable source of Charlie’s rage and drunkenness has been found. We have also found the source of what compels Eli to tolerate the life that he seemingly does not want, which is the guilt of allowing his brother to ruin his own life by committing the deed that he feels was his responsibility.
Throughout the film we see examples of what the men are forced to do, many are killed attempting to attack the brothers and we experience the brutality of the frontier with the brothers. We also see examples of how the men choose to behave when presented with brief respite; in Charlie’s case its to react with the same violence of which he approaches his work, while Eli enjoys the simple pleasures of owning a toothbrush and demonstrates a great deal more kindness to the women of the saloon than most men of his calibre would.
We receive hopes of psychological and personal reformation through their friendship with Morris (Gyllenhaal) and Warm (Ahmed). They seem to rediscover kindness and companionship as they work with their new friends deep in the American wilderness, they enjoy cooking together and discovering their many similarities, they speak candidly and spend late evenings laughing with each other to the extent that Charlie even lets down his high guards.
However devastating for the audience though, it does not last and is ultimately brought to a deathly and disastrous end by Charlie’s selfishness and inability to manage his emotions.
The ending however is somewhat hopeful, with the two brothers abandoning their life of crime and returning home to their mother, who is initially weary of their presence but ultimately welcomes them in as they exclaim “We’re just tired mama”.
They’re tired of the life they’ve been living and the mental toll it has taken on them. Because man is not supposed to live the way that they do. This is a fact that goes unacknowledged by many westerns. The ending is somewhat hopeful as they are now able to begin healing.
~Alexander~
Article Notes:
The Sisters Brothers (2018 Film)
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/fast-track-fandom-where-begin-psychological-westerns
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4971344/
T H E N A I V E F I L M M A K E R 