sustain:if:able kiwi

The Power of the Dog: a theological film review

Monthly I write a film review for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 165 plus films later, here is the review for December 2021.

The Power of the Dog
Reviewed by Steve Taylor

After a twelve-year silence, New Zealand director, Jane Campion, plays again. Acclaimed for her work on The Piano, Campion takes us to 1920’s Montana. Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons) are brothers. Strikingly different, they share the lonely task of raising cattle on their parents’ ranch. Tensions are heightened when George marries, bringing Rose (Kirsten Dunst) to the family homestead.

A star cast offers powerful performances. Highlights include Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the talented, yet grief-stricken Phil, and Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Rose’s enigmatic son.

Amid a star cast, the films’ most important character is never seen. In a cowboy world of word of few words, the death twenty-five years ago of ranchhand Bronco Henry is a grief that refuses to be forgotten. It is intriguing to watch a film haunted by the main character’s absence, the unprocessed grief a festering wound, demanding attention.

The film is based on a novel by Thomas Savage. In books, words provide interior insight into motives. In films, the inner monologue can either be verbalised or visualised. Or, as in The Power of the Dog, a lack of words becomes a deliberate tool that deepens mystery and builds suspense.

In 1920’s Montana, anthrax is a killer, deadly to cows and humans. In a scene-setting cattle drive, a dead cow draws the attention of Phil and his faithful cattle dog. It wasn’t until 1937 that Max Sterne developed a vaccine. While this new vaccine was to bring immediate good news for humans working with cattle, its’ development was a few years after the movie’s final dramatic scenes.

The movies’ title is a quoting of Christian Scripture. In a final dramatic scene, Peter reads the words from a Funeral Order of the Service. Psalm 22:20 become the last words spoken in the movie: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.”

Psalm 22 is a Psalm of lament. The hearer is invited to share in the experiences of a man needing deliverance, a person surrounded by enemies like prowling dogs (verse 16).

In history, the Christian church has connected Psalm 22 with the death of Jesus. In the drama of the cross, Jesus’ last words include the voicing of verse 1: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Yet in the drama of Jesus’ death, his final words also include a prayer that enemies might be forgiven.

The crucifixion thus presents a compelling contrast with the dramatic scenes that end The Power of the Dog. What emerges in the life and death of Jesus is a radically different understanding of justice. Isolated like Rose, Jesus offers a cry of forsakenness rather than a cry for rescue. Mocked like Peter, Jesus places the demand for justice in the hands of God. Such radical trust challenges the human seeking of deliverance, so dramatically enacted in The Power of the Dog.

(For those placed in Covid-19 red traffic lights, The Power of the Dog is available on Netflix from 1 December).