Seek out this documentary in theaters this weekend or VOD on June 24.
Is there ahorse girl canyon ? A canyon of art that palpate like it sincerely represent the idea of a horse girl ? You could fence forThe Return of the Kingmainly because of the Eowyn sequence . The American Girl bird Felicity . Misty of Chincoteague . More recentlyThe Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls . lay eyes on the latest entry : Bitterbrush , a documentary film about charwoman , their horses , their dog , and their friendly relationship .
Emelie Mahdavian ’s film , which is out in field of operations this weekend , is a stunning portrait of Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson , lay out riders who crowd cattle together in the rural Midwest . It ’s an intimate portraiture of an itinerant , set-apart lifestyle that is nothing short of a vocation . But it ’s also an examination of what a community looks like , even if that community means just two people and a bunch of animals .
Mahdavian swing the viewer in with Colie and Hollyn as they are get up to lay out for an assignment , loading an unruly sawhorse into a trailer . When they get at their finish , they are thrilled that this year they have a whole little house to themselves or else of a camper . Hollyn crevice about wanting a " married woman " to cook and houseclean for them , admitting that is not her own nature , a caper which will ring of irony later . Their pack of dogs , including a pup that looks like a baby bear , are there to herd and work , but they also nuzzle in layer with their owner . The line between colleague and pet is very thin .
Magnolia Pictures
The herding is hard and wearing for all the creature affect , but Mahdavian settles into the beautiful rhythms of it . Hollyn and Colie are easily funny as they unintentionally anthropomorphize the cattle as wayward kid . There ’s something peaceful about the way the women break for lunch , making sandwiches from shekels that has been flatten out in their saddlebags and prepackaged tuna salads . They share a Pepsi between them .
Mahdavian ’s camera play up the visual splendor of her depicted object ’s animation , but their words make the economical world of the job strikingly vindicated . Farm labor is in Colie ’s blood , and as she sit at a fireplace she sing about the death of her mother , a woman whose hands told the account of her life on the land . It ’s a monologue that could have been scripted in its poesy , but has the swing of sorrow that phlebotomise authenticity .
Bitterbrushmakes it evident that this is the only way for Hollyn and Colie , whose power with horse is casual , evident in a successiveness where Hollyn break a small Palomino she describe Marilyn because of her light-haired head of hair . But more crucial than their instinctive understanding of animals or environment is their sisterly bond with each other . It ’s horse girl cinema , yes , but it ’s also deeply human cinema as well .
