Down From The Mountain: A Review of 'Seraphim Falls'

Coming to us courtesy of a director whose experience has been limited so far to television cop shows of varying repute, Seraphim Falls has far more to offer an audience that simply a name that needs to be spoken twice to anyone who asks it. Firstly, it gives Pierce Brosnan another chance to bring his brand of business-like charisma to the screen, something which is always welcome, and delivers some fantastic photography in addition to a surprisingly engaging story.

‘Never turn your back on the past’ is the tagline for the film, which is presumably an attempt at irony on the part of writer-director David Von Ancken, as the film-making seems resolutely against giving any additional information other than the presently-occurring facts: Brosnan, name unknown, is being pursued through the wintry climbs of some mountains in the American south-west in the years following the civil war by a band of calmly calculating gruffians, led by Liam Neeson, name unknown. The one man flees from the rest, getting shot, injured, submersed in ice cold water; all the while the film staves off an explanatory flashback in the same way that Brosnan’s character keeps one step ahead of those after him; when the past seems to catch him, it is but a fleeting glimpse, the chase resumes, and the audience stays in the dark.

I am sure that Ancken was pressured to put some kind of explanatory titles at the start of the film; that he has not caved makes him worthy of real credit. It is a rare pleasure to simply watch events unfold without repeated overtures made to what led everyone here. It lends the film an urgency and excitement that it is able to maintain for much of its lean-feeling two-hour running time. When the details begin to trickle through it feels natural, not forced: Brosnan introducing himself as Gideon, and the dropping of Neeson’s character’s name being Carver. These are not introductions, they are overheard snippets.

In lieu of back-story, we get to watch Brosnan repeatedly mumble and wince in pain as he is put through several tortures, which suggest the makers recently viewed Die Another Day. His character is described as one ‘who doesn’t speak much’, and it is indeed half an hour before he says a word. It is hard to see why Brosnan was cast in the role (the involvement of Mel Gibson’s Production Company Icon and the near-constant infliction of pain suggest the erstwhile lethal weapon was previously drawn to the part), but it works a treat, as does Neeson’s quietly venomous but ultimately human portrayal of a man out to catch another man.

Moving from icy primitivism through familial concern and towards the corporate civilization of the railroad (via Christian missionaries, of course), the various stocks-in-trade of the American Frontier myth are addressed and subtly manipulated. Having thus crafted a state-of-the-nation circa 1868, the film then veers towards the surreal, in the last reel moving unexpectedly into David Lynch territory (although one suspects even he would have had second thoughts about Wes Studie cameoing as a character in charge of a watering hole called Charon.) This is not entirely unwelcome; indeed, it brings a new slant to the story, as does the movement from the top of the mountains, through an autumnal pine landscape, and onto the boiling heat of a featureless salt flat. One might criticise that the visceral energy presented, however mutely, in the first hour begins to ebb away from the piece, but if this slight remove gives off the whiff of intellectualism, surely that is a far sight more interesting than another town-based gun battle, no matter how confidently staged? The film demands a second watch, not because of any plot twists or character revelations, but because it conjures up the sights, smells and atmosphere of its locales in a way that few other films, let alone Westerns, manage so confidently.

In the final reckoning – having mixed a tweaked Outlaw’s Progress tale with various elements of Greek tragedy, biblical emotions, and historical cliché – Seraphim Falls is oddly able to walk into the sunset with head held high.