Brimstone

Well Brimstone (Martin Koolhoven, 2016), as the title may indicate, is a western mired in a battle between good and evil. We meet Liz who with her husband and their children live in a small frontier community, she is a midwife and we soon find out that she is mute. A new preacher arrives in town and Liz takes an instant dislike to him. There then follows a story about death, accusation and redemption. It's a world full of misogyny and mistrust, where men display unspeakable behaviour, truly awful. There are some moments in this film where I had to hide away they were that horrible to look at. It maybe that Martin Koolhoven had this in mind when he was making the film, you certainly empathise with the characters. There's at least one Chien Andalou moment here. There are great production values on display here, the film is well shot but I'm not sure about some of the content I saw here and it was all a bit far fetched really.