“God’s Country” – There is no god here [MOVIE REVIEW]
Director and co-writer Julian Higgins is very clear from the outset that he was making a western. How do we know? The first few minutes are a pastiche of 19th Century photos of Western iconography—Native Americans, cowboys, ranches, farmers, settlers – followed by a sweeping shot of a mountain range in a desolate winter landscape. Thandiwie Newton as Sandra in “God’s Country.” Photo courtesy of IFC Films. We first meet our heroine, Sandra, an African American woman at a funeral parlor as she presides over the cremation of someone in a pine box. Sandra is a college professor in this small, unidentified, western town. At the departmental meeting, she is the only person of color and one of two women in a sea of white, patronizing men. Returning home, a pickup truck drives up and parks. Out of the truck come two hunters armed with shotguns. They have not come to disturb her, they explain, but to park closer to the woods where they will hunt. Trying to be as polite as one can be when speaking through tight lips, she points out that this is her private property and she would like them to leave. Despite their protestations and her insistence, they leave ungraciously. She is soon…
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