Edinburgh Film Festival By Martin Hoyle Published: June 25 2010 22:08 | Last updated: June 25 2010 22:08
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, with its individuality, boldness and bizarre blend of mythic yarn-spinning, is an extraordinary debut feature. Tiller Russell's Western is set in 1912, which explains a bereaved father transporting his son's corpse across the desert in the back of a car. Add a richly caparisoned tent in the middle of nowhere housing tragic Siamese twins, one of whom is dying (which means they both are), and a bitterly articulate dwarf. There is also a disfigured Mexican voodoo priestess, a scripture-quoting killer, a code of honour, and in Lizzy Caplan (True Blood) a believably tough woman who fights, swears, beds and kills on a par with the men. Totally riveting, with a weird poetry all its own. What will Russell do next?
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, with its individuality, boldness and bizarre blend of mythic yarn-spinning, is an extraordinary debut feature. Tiller Russell's Western is set in 1912, which explains a bereaved father transporting his son's corpse across the desert in the back of a car. Add a richly caparisoned tent in the middle of nowhere housing tragic Siamese twins, one of whom is dying (which means they both are), and a bitterly articulate dwarf. There is also a disfigured Mexican voodoo priestess, a scripture-quoting killer, a code of honour, and in Lizzy Caplan (True Blood) a believably tough woman who fights, swears, beds and kills on a par with the men. Totally riveting, with a weird poetry all its own. What will Russell do next?