Plot
| Narrative acts |
|---|
| 1. Revelation |
| 2. Exodus |
| 3. Genesis |
| 4. Retribution |
The plot consists of four acts, which are presented in anachronic order. The chronological order is Acts 3 (Genesis), 2 (Exodus), 1 (Revelation), and 4 (Retribution). So, after the first act, Revelation, the following acts are what happened before and the fourth act is chronologically the last.
1. Revelation
Elizabeth "Liz" Brundy lives in the Old West with her husband Eli and their two children: Matthew, Eli's son from a previous marriage, and daughter Samantha, called Sam.
Liz works as a midwife who can hear but is mute, and so communicates through sign language. One day, a new Preacher, known as "The Reverend", hosts a session at the local church, and the moment that Liz hears his voice, she seems to recognize him and is terrified by his appearance. Later that day, Liz is forced to choose between delivering a baby safely or saving its mother; she chooses to euthanise the baby and save the mother, without telling her until after the procedure is finished. Afterwards, Nathan, the husband of the formerly-pregnant woman, blames Liz. That night, Nathan drunkenly shows up at Eli and Liz's house, violent and threatening; Nathan claims Liz is responsible for his son's death. In the middle of the fight, the Reverend shows up and tells him to leave. He then goes into Eli's house and has a mysterious talk with Liz, saying she is guilty of the murder of Nathan's son and must be "punished". As Eli overhears some of the conversation, the Reverend leaves the house. Eli's sheep are found dead the next morning, and he seeks out Nathan, who has since disappeared. Liz later sneaks off at night to murder the Reverend, but finds her daughter's doll in the Reverend's bed instead. Meanwhile, the Reverend disembowels Eli, and leaves him to die. As he succumbs to his wounds, Eli tells Matthew to take the family up into the mountains to his father, before the boy mercy kills him. Liz and the children flee the farm.
2. Exodus
A young girl named Joanna, walking through the desert, is picked up and nursed by a traveling Chinese family. In the mining town of Bismuth, Joanna is sold to a brothel owned by Frank. She is protected by Sally, a prostitute, until she is hanged for shooting a violent customer; another prostitute, Elizabeth, then protects Joanna in the aftermath of Sally's hanging. However, when Elizabeth bites the tongue of an abusive customer, her tongue is cut off as punishment. Joanna teaches Elizabeth sign language from a book the doctor gave her. Elizabeth plans to sneak out of Bismuth to start a new life, and arranges through a marriage broker to marry Eli. The Reverend comes to the brothel, recognizes Joanna, and proceeds to violently abuse her. Elizabeth saves Joanna but is murdered by the Reverend with Joanna slashing his throat in retaliation. She runs away, cutting off her own tongue and taking Elizabeth's place with Eli.
3. Genesis
In the desert, two badly wounded men, Samuel and Wolf, are the last survivors in a dispute over gold that has left several other men dead. They depart on a single horse.
Joanna lives with her mother, Anna, and father, revealed to be the Reverend himself. He is strictly religious and is often cruel and abusive towards his family. Samuel and Wolf collapse at the farm and Joanna secretly cares for them. Anna confronts the Reverend when she realizes he lusts after their daughter, so he beats and humiliates her by placing a scold's bridle on her head. In response, Anna commits suicide in full view of the church congregation. The next day the Reverend takes Joanna to church and starts to perform a wedding ceremony between himself and his daughter. Samuel tries to rescue her, but the Reverend murders him. Her father whips Joanna and rapes her. In the morning she runs off.
4. Retribution
Matthew is shot by the Reverend as he follows Liz to her father-in-law's place in the mountains. He murders her father-in-law and tells Liz he will beat and rape her daughter, but Liz murders him instead. Sometime later, after Liz has turned Eli's place into a sawmill, Nathan arrives to arrest her. The Reverend had sent him to Bismuth where he became a deputy and then sheriff. Having found a wanted poster of Elizabeth Brundy (the woman without a tongue who killed Frank before she saved Liz/Joanna), Nathan has come to arrest her (Liz). As Nathan is escorting her onto a ferry, with a last look at her daughter playing on the shore, Liz throws herself in the lake and drowns. Her daughter Sam, now a grown woman with a child of her own, remembers her well.
Release
Brimstone's first commercial release was in The Netherlands on 12 January 2017, becoming Martin Koolhoven's fifth consecutive hit film. [19] The film was also released on 10 March 2017, in selected theaters and video on demand in the United States. It was sold to more than 80 countries in the world, making it the best-sold Dutch movie ever. [20]
Critical reception
In The Netherlands, the film received generally positive reviews from critics [24] [25] and opened strongly. [26] [27] The readers of True West Magazine chose the movie as Best Foreign Western Movie. [28] Koolhoven won the Gouden Pen (Golden Pen) for the screenplay and the Gouden Film (Golden Film) for the film. [29] On 29 September 2017, Brimstone won six Golden Calves (often called "The Dutch Oscars") at the Netherlands Film Festival, breaking the old record of four. [30]
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 45% based on 76 reviews and the average rating is 4.90/10. [31] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 based on 17 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [10] While The Independent wrote "Brimstone is raw and very powerful filmmaking, a movie that can't help but get under your skin", [32] Variety wrote it was "highfalutin exploitation", blaming it on the Netherlands, writing, "It is, after all, a country that ever since the 1960s, especially in Amsterdam, has profferred a more liberal view than almost any other place of what might euphemistically be termed 'youthful sexuality'." [33] Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com referred to the film as "dimwitted, amoral exploitation" and accused Koolhoven of identifying most with the murderous and incestuous Reverend. [34] Kevin Maher of TheTimes UK called it "an exploitation western that veers from self-importance to high camp." [35]
Brimstone was released in the United Kingdom on 29 September 2017, and was well received by the British press. [36] Empire gave it four stars and called it "white-knuckle tense", [37] and Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian : "This epically long, lurid, violent western from Dutch film-maker Martin Koolhoven has a kind of Tarantino-ish prolixity and narrative ingenuity. Despite its very indulgent length, it never bores." [38]
