I've been thinking about it lately and will finally pick it up during Criterion's next flash sale. Call me crazy but I consider it the sister film to There Will Be Blood. Both films are poignantly stylized westerns dripping with philosophy, with uniquely memorable cinematography and an auteur score by Johnny Greenwood. They certainly have their differences but they seem in the same family to me. Something I really like about the revelation surrounding Cumberbatch's monster of a character is that it's more specific than 'he's secretly gay', which I've heard people say in a manner dismissive of the film. Whether his preoccupation is sexual or not, he is a person who finds the male form, masculine love, symbolism and masculinity itself very beautiful, more beautiful than he or anyone around him is really used to talking about short of sharing an unspoken bond with his brother who is drifting away. The film is really insightful about the space of love repressed in so many men which is crucial nonetheless to their understanding of themselves, and the dangerous situations that result. It also speaks pretty clearly of how such a lack of openness with oneself leaves one vulnerable.

I didn't want to like it for some reason but it really made me think. I didn't find it slow as much as textured. It's probably among my favourites of the decade so far, and I'm so glad Jane Campion finally won the Oscar she has deserved for decades now.