Western - Wellington Film Society

Valeska Grisebach, Germany/Bulgaria 2017, 121 mins, HD, M, violence, sexual references, offensive language.

It's better to forget the title of Valeska Grisebach's Western while you're watching it - though it does have echoes of cowboy movies, it is closer to the builder's milieu of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

In this brilliantly observed mood piece, a German road crew arriving in rural Bulgaria behave brashly, camping on a hill and raising a German flag, but soon find their work stymied by lack of water and gravel.

Our quiet hero Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann) borrows a horse from a local fixer, and gang boss Vincent upsets the villagers by ducking a local girl in the river. The film unfolds from these budding friendships and tensions in deeply satisfying intimate, brooding encounters. - Nick James (reporting on the Cannes Film Festival), Sight and Sound, July 2017.

Screened in co-operation with the Goethe Institute.