11/6/18 - The Rider (2018) - 8/10

The story is like the setting: expansive and beautiful, but sparse and soul grinding. A lithe and sad tumbleweed blowing across the echoed loneliness of crippled dreams and flittered glory. It is a sublime meeting of the illuminated and heavenly splendor and the grounded grit of the broken and flawed. All of this is due to the spectacular vision and artistry to Zhao and her cinematographer Joshua James Richardson.

Naturalistic acting from Jandreau, which is both obvious and extraordinary, seeing as he is not an actor and playing a version of himself. Nonetheless, there is something uncanny and captivating about him, his face, his way, all of it. He and his tortured tale kept me hooked throughout. His far-off look and his thin lipped daily grind in a world that is no longer his own; felt like I was there.

It is gorgeous and emotional. It slowly seeps into your soul. The grace of her camera and the lustrous images she captures, they really move you in a subtle and instinctive way. The story is powerful on the small scale but no less potent. It is an experience that relays the sorcery of cinema.