War has always been a cruel and violent affair and the traumas caused by conflicts in the souls of participants and victims is not a 20th century invention. This would be the main message of Scott Cooper‘s 2017 film ‘Hostiles‘. The story that takes place in the last decade of the 19th century uses motifs and the visual repertoire of the western genre to examine a painful episode in the American history – the wars between government armies and American Indian tribes. It is not, of course, a new theme, it has been addressed in many classic films of the genre, but the violence of the conflict and its collateral victims have rarely been presented from such a sharp realistic perspective. ‘Hostiles‘ manages to rise above the level of exploiting violence for commercial purposes, proposing a story and bring to screen heroes who have the strength to overcome the animosities of the past, thus instilling the hope of a possible reconciliation.
Clashes seem inevitable between the characters in ‘Hostiles‘. Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) is assigned to accompany the Indian chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family on a final journey to the place where he was born and where he would die after many years in captivity. Military discipline and the threat of losing his approaching pension convince Blocker to accept a mission he dislikes, namely to escort safely the head of his former enemies. Between them there is a whole history of fighting and cruelty on both sides. On their way, they meet Rosalee Quaid (Rosamund Pike), a traumatised woman who has just lost her husband and three children killed in an attack by another Indian tribe. The journey of the former enemies through the prairies and mountains of the continent takes place in conditions of permanent danger, which forces them to fight together to survive, becoming an opportunity to know each other and recognise the absurdity of violence.
‘Hostiles’ has remarkable visual qualities and the name of Masanobu Takayanagi, the director of cinematography must be mentioned. He takes the traditional elements of the western and alternates them with long shots that focus on the characters and their feelings. All the heroes of the film bear the burden of wounds and the psychological scars of the violence they witnessed or executed. The characters are believable and the slow pace of the story telling gives them time to reveal and develop. The counterpoint of the fast-paced action scenes is welcome. The only major problem with the film is, in my opinion, the insistence with which the messages are repeated and the way too explicit they are exposed. The idea that physical closeness gives the opportunity to know the enemy, and that understanding his motivations, recognising humanity and rejecting demonisation are prerequisites for reconciliation is clear from start and I do not think it should be repeated explicitly. The desire to conform to the criteria of diversity and political correctness, even when it comes to history, is beginning to have a negative influence on the screenplays of films of this kind. Fortunately, in ‘Hostiles‘ the intense acting (especially by Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike) helps us forget the excessive rhetoric of part of the text and situations. The film manages to bring to the screen a vivid and believable story from one of the most interesting periods of American history.