As crowdfunding and technology make filmmaking more accessible and streaming services make the moving image ubiquitous, more and more films are being born that defy categorization. “Two Plains and a Fancy,” the latest feature from duo Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, is one such movie. This self-described “spa Western” follows three travelers, Ozanne (Laetitia Dosch), Alta Mariah (Marianna McClellan), and Milton (Benjamin Crotty), as they travel through 1893 Colorado searching for hot springs. Between encountering a series of abandoned spas and charming some fellow transients, the trio discusses spirituality, the earth, and art.
On the Twee Scale, a thing I just made up which ranges from “any Ken Burns film” to “a mustard-yellow Mason jar filled with Wes Anderson‘s hair clippings,” “Two Plains and a Fancy” is so far to the right that it nearly surpasses that ochre reliquary. I live in Brooklyn, own a record player, and follow a letterboard Instagram account. And still, this movie annoyed the living hell out of me. Its celluloid images are lovely, rendering the Western landscape sumptuous and tangible, but it’s hard to sit through the film’s fifth pointless monologue about spiritualism or six hundredth un-funny quip without letting your mind wander to just how expensive it can be to shoot on film. (Hint: very expensive!) The film’s madcap cast of characters are charming for a spell, but you’ll soon reach your limit of straining to understand Ozanne’s accent, caring about Alta Mariah’s new-age crap, or withstanding Milton’s pretension. These characters are undoubtedly supposed to be parodies of themselves, but their collective unrepentant narcissism broods more resentment than laughter. By the end of the feature, it’s hard not to cringe every time somebody talks.
“Two Plains and a Fancy” is more like a mood board for a loving send-up to the Western canon than an actual realization of that idea. Horn and Kalman clearly love film — they shoot on celluloid and push the medium to its experimental ends with double-exposure ghosts, long wordless takes, and anachronistic images — yet the movie they’ve made feels like a showy grad school project. It’s overflowing with zany ideas, so much so that none of them really manage to stick. There’s a guy who’s basically gay (except, not, I guess) and loves scarves! There’s a con woman-turned-holistic healer! There’s a geologist who speaks French! There’s time-travel! There’s…no plot to speak of! The movie leaves you with a lot of cutesy images and a few good one-liners, but you’re ultimately left craving structure to tie them together. This isn’t a “Meek’s Cutoff“-esque experimental meta-Western, where the plodding plot and naturalistic style are a commentary on the era itself. This is just a meandering mess that happens to be set in the west(/the future/time immemorial).
In another life, I am this film’s target audience. I love woo-woo psychedelic garbage, adore back-to-basics filmmaking, and champion any creator’s right to push the limits of the medium. The film’s cast is game for its out-there antics, even if their performances dip into theater-kid sincerity now and again. But 90 minutes of mismatched blathering from agonizingly droll characters is a lot to ask of any audience, especially if you don’t have any meaningful plot to back it up. I don’t resent Kalman and Horn’s right to make this movie — after all, film is the only medium that could really support it. But, like a prospector tramping through the Western wilds with a pan full of silt, I do wish I hadn’t wasted my time. [D]