Fantastic Film Fest 2023 Review - Quantum Cowboys
Images courtesy of Fantastic Film Festival.
Quantum Cowboys is a bold expedition into the Wild West, the mind-boggling multiverse, and the very capacity and parameters of the cinematic form itself. This film is part experimental, part animation, part revisionist Western and completely intriguing. The film follows Frank and Bruno, two best friends living and surviving as best they can in 19th century Arizona. After the two are reunited when Frank is released from jail, the pair run into the headstrong Linde, a determined Indigenous woman who employs the help of Frank and Bruno to try and get her land back.
However, running alongside this fairly linear story, writer and director Geoff Marslett has concurrently included a visual depiction of his understanding of the multiverse theory. Appearing in many mainstream films over the past few years, from Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse (2018) to the more recent Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), the multiverse is proving to be an extremely fruitful backdrop for films attempting to bring nuance and depth to their films – as well as mind-boggling visuals, and Quantum Cowboy is no different. The film employs a variety of animation styles throughout to depict each separate ‘reality’ of its own multiverse; from 2D animation that ranges from moving line drawings on a blue backdrop, to a more painterly, fluid style reminiscent of the look of Loving Vincent (2017). The film also combines zany clay-mation and at times a paper style that gives the movie a homemade scrapbook feel.
Not only does Quantum Cowboy feel like a miraculous love letter to the never-ending potential of the cinematic medium and animation itself, it also offers a modern re-telling of the traditionally macho and very white, Western genre. The trio at the centre of the film, Frank, Bruno and Linde, each act to disarm a mainstay of the classic Hollywood western. The typical hero of the Western (think John Wayne), often moved solo, drifting into a town and leaving when his work was done. Yet the bond between Frank and Bruno provides a refreshing ‘bromance’ element to the narrative. Furthermore, having an Indigenous woman helming a Western film also provides an alternate depiction of life in the Wild West, a fact made all the more satisfying given the historically stereotypical and racist depiction of Native Americans in Westerns of the past.
At times, the film will jump out of its cowboy plotline, and stick us with ‘Memory’, a seemingly all-knowing and omniscient entity prone to giving lectures about space, time, fate and decision, all of which honestly reads as less informative and sage, and more complex and philosophical simply for the sake of being so. Where the film really shines is in its dazzling animation styles and imaginative take on a genre that is making less and less of an appearance in the mainstream nowadays. Hopefully more movies will follow in the footsteps of Quantum Cowboy, and breathe new life into the genre film.
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Quantum Cowboys is screening at the 2023 Fantastic Film Festival Australia, running 14th to 30th April. Check out the festival website for tickets and more info here.