REVIEW: Dances with Wolves

DANCES WITH WOLVES 
I have never always been  too fond of western movies because the vast majority of the popular western movies for me are either  old, really old or it's so buried in American culture in a way that you'd really have to be in on the joke in order to understand it. In short i just couldn't understand western movies at all (except maybe the odd one or two that i couldn't name without looking it up). Dances with wolves on the other hand is the movie that made me learn how to love western movies and see what all the fuss was all about.  Being released in 1990 at a time when the western genre had long declined, Dances with Wolves in its manifestations of the western genre's best qualities made it critically acclaimed as an innovator, winning  seven academy awards (including best picture, screenplay, cinematography) re-vitalizing the western genre again for contemporary cinema.

 Directed by and starring Kevin Costner, the adaptation of Michael Blake's same (published 1988) was an epic-western film released in  1990. The story is simple enough think of Pocahontas meets the Civil War, chronicling the story of a ridiculously lucky solider stationed in isolation in the middle of nowhere with only the vast plains to keep him company. The lucky soldier, John J. Dunbar, must confront his values as a soldier, a confederate American and a "civilized human being" as he befriends the local Sioux tribe struggling with the absence of their most vital resources: the "buffalo".

Looking back this is a very simple story that i very easily summarized in a couple of sentences and at the 236 minute (3.93 hours) directors cut that i watched it very well took its time. This is what forced me to realize  what western movies are all about because i didn't feel like the movie was too long at all it was a lot like chocolate in a way and like eating chocolate which is very sweet Dances With Wolves in the way it goes about things is very charming. It forced me to see that western movies try its best to characterize the land with it's extremely wide establishment shots, it's use of distinct locations to really capture that beauty by engaging with the viewer with these vast expanses. Furthermore, westerns characterize the land with mystery and with mystic, Dances with Wolves did this perfectly with its impeccable use of pacing and timing at times even just flat out silence at times. Then there are the charming yet mystical characters like the Dunbar's noble steed or his loyal companion a Wolf which he spends a majority of the film  with and of course the whimsical yet still mystical members of the Sioux clan that Dunbar befriended specifically the witch doctor Kicking Bird (Played by Graham Greene).

Lastly what to me was one of the most important aspects of the western genre are  the legend-like-adventures and Dances with Wolves (the film and the character himself, Dunbar) had plenty of compellingly legend like adventures by that i mean that if i were to hear about these adventures as stories  happened in real life i would had assumed they were actual legends. These adventures are what the western genre does time and time again or at least aim to do, when they succeed like in Dances with Wolves it achieves pitch-perfect, nail-biting, jaw dropping-Ly thrilling, textbook  pacing. It told me to notice the beauty of the dessert, the mystery of the mystical vast expanse, the joy of the charming characters and the jaw dropping satisfaction of the adventures this is what made Dances with Wolves so utterly satisfying like chocolate in film form and worthy of the more or less 4 hours epic that i sat through.

TRAILER

I give it 5 Stars out of 5.

-- Ivan