If it was about 'Phil', who else took up a lot of the screen time? Peter. The son of the woman (Rose) who married his brother (George).
I cannot discuss the brilliance of this film without examining the story itself. So, be warned ... details from the story, the visuals, the end are coming. I've seen the film twice and likely will see it again. There is just so much to peel back from this film!
On the surface, it's a very slow-moving story. Simple in many ways - two brothers get their parents ranch, and on a cattle drive, one brother takes a fancy to a woman they meet at a location where they lodge. He marries her and takes her and her son back to the ranch, where the other brother thinks she wants his money, and there is conflict between the brothers. The son is slender and effeminate, easy fodder for these burly cowboys, and the second brother loses no time in becoming cruel to him. In the end, the second brother dies from anthrax, leaving the mother, son and first brother on their own. Simple, right? Ahhh ... not so fast.
Underneath the surface of the above story lies a layer of toxic masculinity and the conflict between this and latent, secret homosexual urges. And under that ... a psychotic, twisted, Oedipus-complex-type sickness. And beneath that - a story of being queer in an age of cowboy masculinity, and the damage that can come through this. To be clear, Peter does not want sex with his mother ... Peter is rather asexual in many ways. You're not sure what he is, as there is no indication in any direction. But boy, does Peter love his mother! Not unlike Norman Bates in many ways. In fact, very interesting similarities in Peter and Freddie Highmore's Norman in the TV show Bates Motel. Phil is the main character, in many ways, for he both starts and ends the film; the plot weaves around him and how this hidden part of him, this homophobia and secret relationship with his mentor has formed him into the man he became is the central part to the film.
When I went back to watch it a second time, the clues were all there. In fact, in many ways I enjoyed the movie more the second time. I could watch it closer as I knew the end, and the path the narrative took was even more fascinating. There is no doubt that Jane Campion (the director) was incredibly meticulous about every detail. Every angle, every glance, every movement. It all meant something. How she built tension between characters - between Rose and Peter, between Rose and George, between Rose and Phil, between Phil and George, between Phil and Peter, and between Phil and Bronco Henry (a character never seen but who formed Phil in many ways). Each relationship was meticulously formed and developed, with massive props to the actors behind the characters!
I could go into a variety of things - the quick visual moments (the frozen shock in Peter's eyes when Phil lights his cigarette with the exquisite flower that Peter made and snuffs it out in the glass of water, the careful gloved hand as Peter cuts the hide of the found dead cow, the white shoes he wears to be replaced with cowboy boots and later the return of the white shoes, the light and dark colouring of the characters, and on and on. Other have dissected the film better than I have and the details are mesmerizing. But the moment that made my stomach freeze was the smile Peter had when he took the cigarette from Phil, the angle of filming upward (who has the power now?), and after, when Peter turns from the window, my stomach turned over.
The movie began with Phil obviously in power - he was the power-dog in the beginning. But, as we/the viewer were mesmerized by his 'power', we missed what was happening to Peter, and his insane obsession with protecting his mother. We thought he was a weak, effeminate, powerless victim. But oh, no ... he slyly and quietly waited and watched and we ignored ... much like the fox that the actor used as a metaphor for his character. And when the moment presented itself, he leapt in for the kill. And no one knew it was him. In fact, I bet many viewers didn't realize it was him, either. Phil was not the power-dog in the end ... a reversal had happened, all without our realizing it, carefully laid out and meticulously planted. But it's all there.
A word about visual and literary arts. This movie comes from a book with the same name by Thomas Savage. There are apparently truth-ties between his story and his life. Many people expect movies from books to be a re-telling of the book and get upset when that is not the case. I, on the other hand, refuse to compare one to the other. I know movies can use books as their inspiration, but they are not bound to be faithful to every detail of that book; in fact, they can pick and choose what they wish to transfer from the source into their artistic creation. Books are omnipotent - you get to see inside character's minds, you get to create the visuals yourself, you are lured in with words and every sensory experience can be communicated. Movies are not like that - they are purely visual. The words come in the form of either voice-overs or dialogue and the director communicates in very different ways.
I bring this up here because apparently (I have not read the originating novel) Phil has a hand in the suicide of Peter's father. This is omitted from the movie, and many are unhappy about that. Personally, I liked it - it made me wonder if Peter had a hand in his father's death for there are subtle hints that he was abusive when he got to drinking. And if his father "committed suicide" and Phil "contracted anthrax" ... Peter just became even more interesting as neither death would ever point to him. And, with that last smile as he turns from the window overlooking (power?) his mother and her new husband, I got the feeling that George better be careful and make sure Rose is always happy, or he might "accidentally" meet his end as well.
Genius film; brilliantly acted, brilliantly directed.
And, did you see the howling dog in the hills? I did. I read somewhere an apropos summary: "this movie is a mesmerizing tale that asks the viewer to see the hidden shape in it, much like Phil and Peter see the shadow of a barking dog in the mountains." And that it does, in more ways than one.
