New Zealander and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jane Campion (“The Piano”) is one of the greatest filmmakers working today and so it’s perhaps no surprise that her latest film, Netflix‘s “The Power Of The Dog” is one of the best films of 2021, atop many critics list and seems bound for Oscar-accolades (it is right at the top of our Best Films of 2021 list too, and our review described it as “cinematic poetry“).
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2021
“The Power Of The Dog” is a mesmerizing Western drama about family, masculinity, resentments, secret tensions and more. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, Campion’s film is about a charismatic Montana rancher Phil Burbank (Cumberbatch) who inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his quieter, obsequious brother (Plemons) brings home a new wife (Dunst) and her son (Smit-McPhee), he begins to resent their new family and begins to torment them relentlessly.
“The Power Of The Dog” is a slightly elusive film and strict attention needs to be paid when watching it (the way it’s masterfully crafted only blossoms further on a second watch). Much of its secrets and mysteries are shaped by Campion’s collaboration with film editor Peter Sciberras, known for working with Australian film director David Michôd on movies like “The Rover,” and “The King.” “The Power Of The Dog” is a film that’s best left to the viewer to experience firsthand; it’s not the kind of film you’d ever want to spoil. But suffice to say, through the editing, it’s constructed somewhat like a honeypot, a spider’s web, and a venus flytrap.
In this exclusive Netflix video, Sciberras explains the process of assembling Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” how the duo treated each scene like it was the only scene of the movie, the importance of building impressions that the audience can hang onto and how each of the film’s five “chapters” takes a different point of view as the narrative orbits the central character of Phil Burbank (Cumberbatch).
It’s a super masterful film, so coiled with tension, and yet so poetic and elegant. Thank god, Campion has returned after a long hiatus from feature-filmmaking into television. “The Power of The Dog” is available on Netflix now. Watch this video exclusive below.
While we’re here, here’s another recently released Netflix featurette worth watching.
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