What if we was men, instead a’ women”—The Keeping Room

“What if we was men instead a’ women?” The Keeping Room (2014) Movie Review

Rating: R The Keeping Room, a feminist western thriller set Genre: near the end of the American Civil War, depicts the Feminist Western/Thriller/Chick-Flick story of three young women living on an isolated Director: Daniel Barber Writer: Julia Hart Release Date (Theatres): September 25, 2015 Cast: Brit Marling as Augusta. Hailee Steinfeld as Louise. Muna Otaru as Mad. Sam Worthington as Moses. Kyle Soller as Henry. Ned Dennehy as Caleb. South Carolina farm. These two sisters and their former slave come to terms with knowing they must survive on their own by forging a new family amongst themselves. Based on their united will to survive against the attacks of two drunk and deserting Union soldiers, Moses and Henry, who are scouring the land victimizing, raping, and killing innocent women and men, sisters Augusta and Louise, and their former slave, Mad, eventually defeat the two attackers, burying them in their backyard. Amy Nuttall as Moll. Nicholas Pinnock as Bill. The Keeping Room is a movie about loss, with very little space for joy. Peaceful pleasantries of melodic Link to trailer: songbirds and the steady, atmospheric heat of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynOvmT2fVyQ

summer in rural, mid-nineteenth-century America permeate the film throughout, occasionally lifting the viewer from the violence and daily drudgery of farming, domesticity, and hunting. While the women in this film are haunted by the consequences of war, they become empowered by defeating violence with violence.

As the movie unfolds, Augusta heads to town, seeking medicine for her sister who has been bitten by a racoon. She finds the town almost deserted, save the local saloon owner and a prostitute who are both shaken by two menacing men occupying a table in the corner of the establishment. When the saloon owner says, “You should go before they sober up,” Augusta takes his warning and escapes, but the union soldiers are on her tail. They eventually arrive

on the women’s property as Augusta finishes shoring up their home. After quickly teaching Louise and Mad the art of handling a revolver, she locks them in a bedroom and proceeds to take Moses on in a gunfight outside. After the shoot-out with Moses, Augusta presumes he’s dead—he is not. Meanwhile, Henry, Moses’ partner, breaks into the locked bedroom, but Mad shoots him in the back while he sexually assaults Louise.

While the film is advertised as a feminist western, it is obviously not a traditional western. The men exist on the periphery of the story and the women are front and centre. Before the onslaught of the gunfight between Augusta and Moses erupts, Augusta and Mad rest in the

kitchen, reflecting, conversing as equals, and Augusta says: “Think ‘bout all the women sittin’ in their houses—were supposed to be taken, but ain’t. Learned to shoot a gun ‘fore they learned to bed. Learned to be men instead of a wife.” War has profoundly changed their lives. We learn a bit about their pasts and see how, in order to survive the war and the attacks from Moses and Henry, they transcend traditional social constructs of gender, class, and race.

In the end, Augusta, Mad, and Louise walk away together, shoulder to shoulder, into the horizon as the camera pulls back and we see them disguised as men in Union soldier uniforms. The pleasing cinematography shifts from light to dark, and then to light again, casting an antithetical spell of human violence against the backdrop of the beautiful landscape, alluding to the struggle between masculine/feminine and war/peace.

The bond between the three women that grows over the course of the film is what drives the film’s pro-feminist/anti-colonialist theme. From Augusta’s role as a leader, her savvy gun-slinging techniques, and Mad’s role as sage and protector of Louise, the status quo of gender and race is unsettled. Vulnerable, injured, and broken, the women face men who have survived the worst of war and who are also broken, desperate, and violent. Most importantly, Augusta, Mad, and Louise are not rescued by any cowboy. They rescue themselves.

In his 1995 article, “The Scarred Woman Behind the Gun: Gender, Race, and History in Recent Westerns,” William Luhr outlines western genre paradigms saying that their appeal has been their “jubilation in masculine power within a narrative and cultural context.” Where the white/colonizer male figure is an agent of progress and women are the agents for the justification of violence—the usual leading man uses unrighteous methods to achieve justification for his righteousness to save a single woman, multiple women, or an entire community. The current paradigm shows the colonizer/white male as the agent of conquest, and not progress, despoiling the marginalized members of the community based on their gender, class, and race. Luhr says, “The Western seems ostensibly to be about justice and civilization building, but it is really about valorized male violence.” The Keeping Room magnifies these paradigms, preparing the colonizer for the fight of his life and exposing his primal thirst for conquest: Augusta: Then why you come like you want a war? Moses: I don’t know how to stop. The only thing reminiscent of a traditional western in The Keeping Room is the violence and the period in which it takes place. The western is an immutable genre, steeped in so much Old West tradition that it is challenging for filmmakers to chip away its time-honoured characteristics that justify white-male conquest and violence over people and nature, not to mention the ever so unconvincing damsels in distress. Keeping Room’s challenge is its overly ambitious scope. Instead of chipping away at the genre, it dismantled it. It is not a bad thing; this is part of a necessary evolution in filmmaking. But because of a subconscious resistance to this deconstruction by the audience, the film lies in between a western, a thriller, and a thriller chick-flick. It really has no genre to call home. This unsettling of the western genre’s paradigm probably influenced the film’s low box office earnings, which were reportedly only $31,168. I would argue The Keeping Room

Augusta, Louise, and Mad in the final scene of The Keeping Room, News24.com.

kitchen, reflecting, conversing as equals, and Augusta says: “Think ‘bout all the women sittin’ in their houses—were supposed to be taken, but ain’t. Learned to shoot a gun ‘fore they learned to bed. Learned to be men instead of a wife.” War has profoundly changed their lives. We learn a bit about their pasts and see how, in order to survive the war and the attacks from Moses and Henry, they transcend traditional social

In the end, Augusta, Mad, and Louise walk away together, shoulder to shoulder, into the horizon as the camera pulls back and we see them disguised as men in Union soldier uniforms. The pleasing cinematography shifts from light to dark, and then to light again, casting an antithetical spell of human violence against the backdrop of the beautiful landscape, alluding to the struggle between masculine/feminine and war/peace.

The bond between the three women that grows over the course of the film is what drives the film’s pro-feminist/anti-colonialist theme. From Augusta’s role as a leader, her savvy gun-slinging techniques, and Mad’s role as sage and protector of Louise, the status quo of gender and race is unsettled. Vulnerable, injured, and broken, the women face men who have survived the worst of war and who are also broken, desperate, and violent. Most importantly, Augusta, Mad, and Louise are not rescued by any cowboy. They rescue themselves.

In his 1995 article, “The Scarred Woman Behind the Gun: Gender, Race, and History in Recent Westerns,” William Luhr outlines western genre paradigms saying that their appeal has been their “jubilation in masculine power within a narrative and cultural context.” Where the white/colonizer male figure is an agent of progress and women are the agents for the justification of violence—the usual leading man uses ss to save a single woman, multiple women, or an entire community. The current paradigm shows the colonizer/white male as the agent of conquest, and not progress, despoiling the marginalized members of the community based on their gender, class, and race. Luhr says, “The Western seems ostensibly to be about justice and civilization building, but it is really paradigms, preparing the colonizer for the fight of his life and exposing his primal thirst for conquest:

is the violence and the period in which it takes place. The western is an immutable genre, steeped in so much Old West tradition that it is challenging for filmmakers to chip away its time-honoured characteristics that justify white-male conquest and violence over people and nature, not to mention the ever so unconvincing damsels in distress. The way at the genre, it dismantled it. It is not a bad thing; this is part of a necessary evolution in filmmaking. But because of a subconscious resistance to this deconstruction by the audience, the film lies in between a western, a thriller, and a thriller chick-flick. It really has no genre to call home. This unsettling of the western genre’s paradigm probably The Keeping Room deserved more.

Dana Graham Lai (she/her)

MA English Literature MAIH program (general stream)