In the beginning, 'Meek's Cutoff'

The first words heard in "Meek's Cutoff" are from Genesis, immediately after which the buckskin-clad Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), wearing a beard the size of a tumbleweed and the air of an Old Testament reprobate, emerges from his tent to confront the new day, and the New World.

Is Meek the new Adam of the unspoiled 1840s West? He's leading several families of pioneers to Oregon, regaling them with tales of his derring-do. He's fought Indians and blazed trails. Or so he says. That he can't find his clients water, but can keep them on edge via well-timed tales of heathens and slaughter, makes him a timeless, iconic American leader.

Meek's various qualities, including theatricality, fear-mongering and incompetence, are metaphorically self-evident. That's a bit surprising, at least for Kelly Reichardt, generally thought of as an "art" filmmaker ("Wendy and Lucy," "Old Joy"), and one who seldom leads her audience by the hand -- or doesn't suffer fools, depending on your point of view. Showing us a pioneer woman fording a stream carrying a caged canary on her head tells you more than 1,000 words, but you have to draw your own conclusions about how she got where she is, or the name of the canary.

That these people are crossing America -- walking it, basically, despite their livestock and covered wagons -- is all one really needs to know about people who've left their past lives with only what they could carry, and toss it away if the mules get tired.

Around them, Reichardt re-creates a universe of Old Masters lighting, arid landscapes and cold indifference. You can see why her characters cling to their Bibles.